BH 


R.?.  HORTON,M.A.,D.D. 


AND 


JOSEPH  HOCKING 


»/rAmMx»aa»»et'mui^n^'aMM : 


'<."/  if-^    P^0^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


SHALL  ROME  RECONQUER  ENGLAND? 


First  Edition 
Reprinted    . 
Repiiiited    . 
Reprinted    . 
Reprinted    . 


September  i,  1910 

„        10,  1910 

30,  1910 

October  25,  1910 

November  30,  iqio 


I*' 


SHALL   ROME 
RECONQUER   ENGLAND? 


BY 

R.   F.    MORTON,   D.D. 

AND 

JOSEPH    HOCKING 


LONDON 

NATIONAL  COUNCIL   OF   EVANGELICAL   FREE   CHURCHES 

F.    B    MEYER,    MEMORIAL   HALL,    E.C. 


,/ix. ; 


FOREWORD 

<n  As   will   be   seen  from  the  title-page,   this 
w  little  book  is  the  work  of  two  authors.     The 
K  contributions  of  each  are  indicated  on  the 
S  page  of  contents.     Usually,  especially  when 
"*  dealing  with  a  controversial  subject,  a  dual 
authorship  presents  great  difficulties.     In  the 
present  case,  however,  those  difficulties  have 
not  existed,  as  there  was  practically  no  differ- 
ence of  opinion  in  relation  to  the  main  issues 
^  under  discussion,  until  the  last  chapter  was 
reached.     The  author  of  that  chapter  there 
o  deals    with    the    duty    of    Protestants,    and 
'^  specially   mentions   what   he   thinks   should 
be  our  attitude  towards  the  King's  Declara- 
tion and  the  inspection  of  monastic  institu- 
tions.     'His      opinions      concerning      these 
questions  are  not  altogether  shared  by  his 
^rfellow-worker,   who   would   rather   urge  the 
3  following  : — 

First,   that   a   strong   Protestant   declara- 


Foreword 

tion  on  the  part  of  the  Sovereign  is  essential, 
and  that  while  no  offensive  terms  should  be 
used,  it  is  necessary,  by  legal  enactments,  to 
secure  the  Protestant  succession  to  the 
throne.  If  the  present  safeguards,  such  as 
the  King's  Declaration,  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
and  the  Act  of  Settlement,  were  removed, 
or  so  weakened  that  a  Roman  Catholic  could 
occupy  the  British  throne,  it  would  not  only 
mean  that  we  might  have  a  Sovereign  who 
would  pay  allegiance  to  a  foreign  power, 
a  power  that  has  ever  been  an  enemy  to  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  but  would  probably 
mean  that  our  nation  would  be  plunged  into 
all  the  horrors  of  a  civil  war.  However,  we 
have  been  lately  assured  that  the  Protestant 
succession  is  safely  guarded,  and  so  we  pro- 
foundly hope  that  while  there  has  been  much 
apprehension  on  account  of  the  action  which 
the  Government  has  taken  in  relation  to  the 
King's  Declaration,  it  will  never  be  possible 
for  a  Papist,  whether  he  be  one  in  secret 
like  Charles  II.,  or  one  openly  avowed  like 
James  II.,  will  ever  again  sit  on  the  British 
throne. 

With  regard  to  the   question  of  the  in- 
spection of  monastic  institutions,  while  both 

vi 


Foreword 

writers  believe  in  the  necessity  for  such  in- 
spection, their  reasons  for  urging  it  are 
different.  The  author  of  the  chapter  under 
discussion  urges  that  monastic  institutions 
should  be  inspected  for  their  own  sakes.  His 
co-worker  would  urge  inspection  not  only  for 
their  own  sakes,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
community  at  large.  At  the  present  moment 
there  are,  according  to  the  best  informa- 
tion obtainable,  more  monastic  institutions 
in  England  than  existed  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VHI.  ;  moreover,  every  convent  and 
monastery  is  practically  a  sealed  house.  One 
European  nation  after  another  has  expelled 
them  as  homes  of  treason  and  as  dangerous  to 
the  well-being  of  the  state.  M.  Yves  Gu)'ot 
says  concerning  them  :  "  The  religious  con- 
gregations are  a  STATE  WITHIN  A  STATE. 
But  they  are  not  merely  that.  They  possess 
a  terrible  solvent  force,  and,  like  the  strong 
vinegar  that  bursts  granite  rocks,  are  capal^le 
of  undermining  the  most  solid  edifice  raised 
by  the  most  united  people." 

But  more  than  this  :  these  institutions 
should  be  open  to  Government  inspection  for 
the  sake  of  the  inmates.     In  this  connection 

it  may  not  be  amiss  to  quote  the  following  : 

vii 


Foreword 

"  Convents  are  sealed  houses.  In  them  are 
thousands  of  our  fellow-creatures.  Most  of 
them  enter  in  youth  when  their  natures  are 
most  susceptible  to  influence.  They  are 
strictly  guarded.  Obedience  is  one  of  the 
great  laws  of  life.  A  ghastly  curse  rests 
on  those  who  dare  to  escape.  They  are 
taught  to  destroy  all  human  affection.  Do 
they  wish  to  come  into  the  world  again? 
iWe  do  not  know,  cannot  know,  except  on 
some  rare  occasion  one  happens  to  escape. 
They  are  under  the  dominion  of  a  confessor 
whom  to  disobey  is  regarded  as  sin.  ...  I 
make  no  charge  of  cruelty,  immorality,  or 
crime.  But  I  assert  that  anything  can  be 
done,  children  can  be  born,  and  women  can 
die,  thiere  can  be  cruelty,  crime,  outrage, 
and  yet  no  one  has  the  right  to  know  any- 
thing about  it. 

"  And  yet  is  it  not  a  fact  that  besides 
these,  practically  every  public  institution  of 
every  sort — asylum,  prison,  reformatory — is 
open  to  public  inspection?  Why  is  it  that 
Rome  should  so  rule  our  land  that  convents, 
monasteries,  and  the  industrial  institutions 
associated    with    that    Church    should    be 

exempt?     The  public  has  a  right  to  know 

viii 


Foreword 

that  all  is  well  within  these  prison  houses, 
especially  in  view  of  their  history  ancient 
and  modern."  ' 

Apart  from  these  two  questions,  however, 
the  authors  hold  practically  the  same  opinion 
on  the  main  issues  with  which  this  book 
deals.  Both  have  for  many  years  been 
interested  in  the  subjects  under  discussion, 
and  have  in  one  form  and  another  placed 
their  views  before  the  public.  As  a  conse- 
quence they  have  received  no  small  amount 
of  abuse  from  the  Romanist  press,  while 
names  of  the  most  opprobrious  nature  have 
been  hurled  at  them.  Of  these  they  have 
taken  no  notice,  neither  have  they  in  any 
fashion  condescended  to  use  the  methods  of 
controversialists  whose  aim  has  apparently 
been,  not  to  arrive  at  truth,  but  to  tarnish  the 
names  of  those  who  have  not  agreed  with 
them. 

But  they  feel  it  wise  and  necessary  to 
reissue,  in  a  more  compact  form,  the  facts 
and  arguments  which  lead  them  to  offer  an 
unflinching  resistance  to  the  attempt  which 

'  From  a  paper  on  the  "Alarming  Developments  of 
Romanism,"  read  at  the  National  Free  Church  Council, 
Swansea,  March  lo,  1909. 

ix 


Foreword 

Rome  is  making  to  recapture  Britain.  They 
know  that  the  success  of  that  attempt  would 
be  the  ruin  of  our  country ;  they  know  that 
such  success  is  only  possible  if  our  people 
lose  their  Bible  and  their  contact  with  Christ. 
Their  contention^,  therefore,  is  for  a  living 
and  working  faith  in  the  verities  of  the 
Christian  gospel  and  in  the  Person  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

August,  19 10. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  "AGE 

I.      WHY     DID     ENGLAND     BECOME     A     PROTESTANT 

NATION?       BY    J.    H.  .  .  .1 

II.      WHY  ROM.VNISM  RUINS  A  COUNTRY.      BY  R.  F.  H.       50 

III.  THE    DETERMINATION    OF    ROME   TO    RECONQUER 

GREAT    BRITAIN.       BY    J.    H  .  .  -72 

IV.  ROME'S   PRO.SPECTS   OF   SUCCESS.      BY   J.   H.  94 

V.       WHAT    WOULD    BE    THE    RESULT    IF    ROME   WERE 

TO    CAPTURE    ENGLAND?      BY    R.    F.    H.  .    Iig 

VI.       AN    APPEAL   TO    F.-VCTS.      BY    J.    H.  .  144 

VII.      THE   DUTY    OF    PROTESTANTS.       BY    R.    F.    H.  .    168 


XI 


CHAPTER    I 

WHY  DID  ENGLAND  BECOME  A  PROTESTANT 

NATION  ? 

The  question  which  is  here  set  down  is  one 
of  supreme  importance.  It  largely  helps  to 
a  correct  understanding  of  the  fundamental 
differences  which  exist  between  Pro- 
testantism and  Romanism.  For  more  than 
three  centuries  England  has  been  a  Pro- 
testant country.  Up  to  the  early  part  of 
the  si.xteenth  century  it  was  Romanist ;  it 
was  largely  ruled  from  Rome,  it  believed 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Church,  and 
it  was  obedient  to  Roman  mandates.  Up 
to  1520  England  was  far  more  a  Roman 
Catholic  country  than  Spain  is  to-day.  And 
yet  within  a  few  years  from  that  date 
England  ceased  to  own  her  allegiance  to 
that  Church,  and  she  learned  to  scorn  her 
most  cherished  traditions.  Institutions 
hoary  with  age  tottered  to  their  very  base  ; 

I  B 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

that  which  had  stood  for  centuries  was  swept 
away  as  if  by  a  whirlwind.  The  whole 
nation  was  shaken  to  its  very  foundation, 
a  new  atmosphere  was  breathed,  and  a  new 
spirit  prevailed  everywhere. 

Such  a  change  does  not  take  place  with- 
out weighty  and  insistent  reasons.  A  change 
which  finds  its  way  into  the  very  warp  and 
woof  of  a  nation's  life  does  not  come  be- 
cause of  some  whims  or  fancies  of  a  few 
individuals.  It  has  its  cause  in  deep-seated 
and  sufficient  forces,  and  it  is  in  a  correct 
understanding  of  those  forces  that  the  rights 
and  wrongs  of  the  whole  question  can  be 
largely  settled. 

In  this  chapter  I  propose  to  give  a  plain, 
straightforward,  although  necessarily  abbre- 
viated and  insufficient  sketch  of  why 
England  claimed  freedom  from  an  authority 
which  had  been  exercised  over  her  for  many 
hundreds  of  years,  and  became  a  Protestant 
nation. 

■We  must  understand  at  the  very  outset 
that  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  Roman  Church  practically  ruled 
England  and  a  great  part  of  Europe.  The 
great  bulk  of  the  people  were  illiterate,  and 

2 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

the  Church  was  the  repository  of  much  of 
the  learning  that  existed.  As  a  consequence, 
the  Church  had  obtained  a  power  which  we 
to-day  can  barely  comprehend.  The  clergy 
were  not  amenable  to  the  laws  under  which 
la}Tnen  lived.  They  governed  the  laity,  but 
the  laity  had  no  power  over  them.  Their 
power  was  felt  in  practically  every  phase 
of  life.  The  throne  of  a  country  was  the 
gift  of  the  Church,  and  no  king  was  law- 
fully the  sovereign  of  his  land  unless  the 
Church  crowned  him.  The  disposition  of 
property  was  also  in  the  hands  of  the 
Church,  and  if  a  man  made  a  will,  that  will 
was  not  valid  if  he  died  out  of  communion 
with  the  Church.  A  priest  was  a  sacred 
person,  and  no  matter  what  crime  he  com- 
mitted, the  ordinary  laws  of  the  land  could 
not  touch  him.  Only  the  Church  could  deal 
with  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Church 
courts  claimed  the  right  to  deal  with  lay- 
men, to  reward  or  to  punish,  as  the  case 
might  be,  in  almost  every  relation  of  life. 

As  one  historian  says  :  "  If  an  impatient 
layman  spoke  a  disrespectful  word  of  the 
clergy,  he  was  cited  before  the  bishop's  com- 
missary and  fined.     If  he  refused  to  pay,  he 

3 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

was  excommunicated,  and  excommunication 
was  a  poisonous  disease.  When  a  poor 
wretch  was  under  the  ban  of  the  Church, 
no  tradesman  might  sell  him  clothes  or  food 
— no  friend  might  relieve  him — no  human 
voice  might  address  him.  under  pain  of  the 
same  sentence  ;  if  he  died  unreconciled  he 
died  like  a  dog,  without  the  Sacraments,  and 
was  refused  a  Christian  burial." 

'When  we  reflect  that  the  people  believed, 
and  without  a  shadow  of  doubt,  that  the 
priests  possessed  the  keys  of  the  future,  that 
they  could  provide  a  passport  into  heaven, 
or  condemn  them  to  a  ghastly  material 
hell,  and  when  we  realise  their  belief  that 
an  excommunicated  person  went,  without 
doubt,  to  everlasting  damnation,  we  can 
understand  something  of  their  power. 

We  must  understand  also  that  the  posses- 
sion of  such  power  on  the  part  of  the  clergy 
led  to  the  possession  of  great  wealth.  Men, 
in  order  to  obtain  the  smile  of  God  and  an 
entrance  into  heaven,  made  vast  bequests 
to  the  Church.  Hallam  the  historian  says  : 
"  The  Church  failed  not,  above  all,  to  in- 
culcate upon  the  wealthy  sinner,  that  no 
atonement  could  be  so  acceptable  to  heaven 

4 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

as  liberal  presents  to  its  earthly  delegates. 
To  die  without  allotting  a  portion  of  worldly 
wealth  to  pious  uses  was  accounted  almost 
like  suicide,  or  a  refusal  of  the  last  Sacra- 
ments, and  hence  intestacy  passed  for  a  sort 
of  fraud  upon  the  Church,  which  she 
punished  by  taking  the  administration  of 
the  deceased  effects  into  her  own  hands." 
Doubtless  many  of  these  gifts  were 
inspired  by  feelings  of  piety  and  devo- 
tion, but  in  any  case  they  went  to  enrich 
the  coffers  of  the  Church,  until  it  possessed, 
not  only  an  incalculable  amount  of  money, 
but  also  a  great  part  of  the  land  of  the 
nation . 

Much  of  this  land  was  held  in  association 
with  the  abbeys  and  monasteries  dotted  over 
the  land.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  great  novel 
"  The  Monastery  "  gives  some  idea  of  the 
position  of  these  institutions.  Their  origin 
is  not  difficult  to  trace.  They  were,  in  the 
main,  built  in  commemoration  of  some 
persons  who  were  believed  to  possess  special 
sanctity.  Often  these  persons  were  believed 
to  have  worked  miracles  during  their  lives, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  relics — their  house- 
hold possessions,  their  clothes,  their  bones, 

5 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

a  lock  of  hair — were  preserved.  Persons 
inspired  by  their  lives  desired  to  follow  their 
example,  and,  as  a  consequence,  fraternities 
arose.  At  the  beginning  they,  were  doubtless 
places  of  self-sacrifice  and  prayer ;  more- 
over, the  monks  were  at  one  time  the 
great  friends  of  the  poor  and  distressed. 
Presently,  however,  corruption  set  in. 
These  abbeys  and  monasteries  became  the 
owners  of  vast  tracts  of  land  :  history  proves 
them  to  have  become  hotbeds  of  vice,  of 
drunkenness,  and  of  self-indulgence  of  all 
sorts,  while  their  inmates  became  proud, 
imperious,  and  corrupt. 

In  proof  of  this  I  cannot,  perhaps,  do 
better  than  quote  from  the  letters  of 
Erasmus,  the  great  scholar  and  wit  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Moreover,  in  quoting 
Erasmus  I  am  quoting  one  who  lived  and 
died  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  friend  of  kings 
and  popes,  and  one  who  might  have  been 
a  Cardinal  of  the  Church  of  Rome  had  he 
so  desired.  Erasmus  was  also  looked  upon 
by  the  Roman  Church  as  the  one  man  who, 
by  his  great  intellect  and  learning,  could 
stem  tlie  tide  of  the  Reformation. 

"  Obedience,"  he  says,  "  is  so  taught  as  to 

6 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

hide  that  there  is  any  obedience  due  to  God. 
Kings  are  to  obey  the  Pope.  Priests  are 
to  obey  their  bishops.  Monks  are  to  obey 
their  abbots.  ...  It  may  happen,  it  often 
does  happen,  that  an  abbot  is  a  fool  or  a 
drunkard.  'He  issues  an  order  to  the 
brotherhood  in  the  name  of  holy  obedience. 
And  what  will  such  an  order  be?  An  order 
to  observe  chastity?  an  order  to  be  sober? 
an  order  to  tell  no  lies?  Not  one  of  these 
things.  It  will  be  that  a  brother  is  not 
to  learn  Greek  ;  he  is  not  to  instruct  him- 
self. He  may  be  a  sot.  He  may  go  with 
prostitutes.  He  may  be  full  of  hatred  and 
malice.  He  may  never  look  inside  the 
Scriptures.  No  matter.  He  has  not  broken 
any  oath.  He  is  an  excellent  member  of 
the  community.  While  if  he  disobeys  such 
a  command  as  this  from  an  insolent  superior 
there  is  the  stake  or  dungeon  for  him 
instantly." 

Again,  in  his  "  Notes  on  the  New  Testa- 
ment," tlie  condition  of  the  priesthood  and 
monastic  houses  is  made  apparent.  He  says, 
in  comment  of  Matt.  xix.   12  : 

"  Men  are  threatened  or  tempted  into 
vows  of  celibacy.     They  can  have  licence 

7 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

to  go  with  harlots,  but  they  must  not  marry 
wives.  They  may  keep  concubines,  and 
remain  priests.  If  they  take  wives,  they  are 
thrown  to  the  flames." 

On  Matt,  xxiii.  he  says  : 

"  You  may  find  a  bishop  here  and  there 
who  teaches  the  gospel,  though  life  and 
teaching  have  small  agreement.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  those  who  destroy  the  gospel 
itself,  make  laws  at  their  will,  tyrannise  over 
the  laity,  and  measure  right  and  wrong  with 
rules  constructed  by  themselves  ?  .  .  . 
•What  would  Jerome  say  could  he  see  the 
Virgin's  milk  exhibited  for  money  with  as 
much  honour  paid  to  it  as  to  the  conse- 
crated body  of  Christ ;  the  miraculous  oil ; 
the  portions  of  the  true  cross,  enough  if 
they  were  collected  to  freight  a  large  ship? 
Here  we  have  the  hood  of  St.  Francis,  there 
Our  Lady's  petticoat,  or  St.  Anne's  comb, 
or  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury's  shoes  ;  not 
presented  as  innocent  aids  to  religion,  but 
as  the  substance  of  religion  itself — and  all 
through  the  avarice  of  priests  and  the 
hypocrisy  of  the  monks,  playing  on  the 
credulity  of  the  people.  Even  bishops  play 
their  part  in  these  fantastic  shows,  and 
approve  and  dwell  on  them  in  their  receipts." 

8 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

One  could  quote  many  pages  of  similar 
writings  from  the  works  of  Erasmus,  all 
going  to  show  the  corrupt  state  of  thef 
Church  all  over  Europe. 

Dean  Colet,  again,  was  just  as  pronounced 
as  Erasmus.  "  Would  that  for  once,"  said 
Colet  to  the  clergy,  "  you  would  remember 
your  name  and  profession,  and  take  thought 
for  the  reformation  of  the  Church.  Never 
was  it  more  necessary,  and  never  did  the 
state  of  the  Church  need  more  vigorous  en- 
deavours. We  are  troubled  with  heretics, 
but  no  heresy  of  theirs  is  so  fatal  to  us  and 
to  the  people  at  large  as  the  vicious  and 
depraved  lives  of  the  clergy.  That  is  the 
worst  heresy  of  all." 

Although  many  of  the  documents  relating 
to  the  condition  of  monasteries  in  England 
were  destroyed  in  the  time  of  Mary,  some 
are  still  to  be  seen,  and  they  reveal  a  state 
of  things  which  cannot  be  set  forth  in  these 
pages,  so  utterly  revolting  are  they  to  the 
most  elementary  sanctities  of  life. 

Indeed,  every  responsible  historian  admits 
that  the  condition  of  the  Church  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
not     merely     out     of     harmony     with     the 

9 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

teaching  of  its  Founder,  but  a  menace  to 
the  best  life  of  the  nations.  In  saying 
this,  however,  it  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  the  clergy  were  all  equally 
bad.  Many  were,  doubtless,  good,  pure 
men,  who  did  their  duty  faithfully  according 
to  their  lights ;  but  the  condition  of  the 
Church  as  a  whole,  as  attested  to  by  fnends 
and  foes  of  Romanism  alike,  called  out  for 
very  drastic  and  vital  reforms. 

Another  force  was  also  at  work  which 
needs  a  passing  word.  What  was  called 
the  New  Learning  prepared  the  way  for  the 
coming  change.  The  discoveries  of  Coper- 
nicus revealed  to  man  many  of  the  secrets 
of  the  universe.  The  daring  of  the  Portu- 
guese mariners,  the  voyages  of  Columbus 
and  of  Sebastian  Cabot,  had  brought  Europe 
into  contact  with  men  of  new  faiths  and 
new  races,  and  had  quickened  the  slumber- 
ing intelligence  of  the  nations.  Exiled 
Greek  scholars  were  welcomed  into  Italy, 
and  Florence  became  not  only  the  home  of 
art  but  of  an  intellectual  revival.  Merchants 
brought  precious  manuscripts  thither,  and 
crowds  of  foreign  students  flocked  over  the 
Alps  to  learn  Greek.     Indeed,  Erasmus  and 

ID 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

Sir  Thomas  More  and  Colet  were  the 
children  of  this  New  Learning,  which  they 
popularised  all  over  Christendom.  More- 
over, it  was  because  Erasmus  advocated  in- 
tellectual advance  that  he  was  maligned  and 
abused  by  monks  and  abbots  and  priests, 
who  were  always  enemies  to  the  advance- 
ment of  light.  Henry  VIII.,  however, 
favoured  the  New  Learning  ;  he  admired 
the  writings  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  especially 
his  "  Utopia  "  ;  he  made  a  personal  friend 
of  Erasmus,  and  praised  the  preaching  of 
Colet.  Thus,  as  Green  the  historian  says, 
"  The  awakening  of  rational  Christianity, 
whether  in  England  or  in  the  Teutonic 
world  at  large,  begins  with  the  Elorentine 
studies  of  John  Colet."  The  writings  of 
these  men  made  the  people  see  that  the 
Church  was  not  the  only  storehouse  of  truth, 
and  they  prepared  the  minds  of  men  every- 
where for  the  reception  of  new  ideas. 

Moreover,  we  must  not  forget  that 
while  what  was  called  Lollardism  was 
seemingly  dead,  the  life  and  work  of 
John  Wycliffe  were  still  bearing  fruit. 
Lollardism,  as  an  "  ism,"  was  practically 
unknown,     but     the     truths     which     John 

II 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Wycliffe  taught  were  so  many  seeds 
which  had  germinated  in  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  many.  Every  ideal  is  an  unborn 
event,  and  John  Wycliffe's  ideals,  although 
not  yet  translated  into  realities,  formed  a 
kind  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  deposit  in 
the  life  of  the  people.  They  constituted  a 
force  which  prepared  the  way  for  the 
Reformation. 

Here,  then,  are  certain  broad  facts  which 
we  must  bear  in  mind  :  The  Church  was 
full  of  abuses,  both  in  life  and  doctrine ; 
the  clergy  were,  in  large  numbers,  corrupt ; 
they  abused  their  power,  although  many  in 
that  fraternity  longed  for  better  things  ;  they 
wielded  tremendous  power,  and  tried  to 
crush  all  desire  for  advancement.  In  spite 
of  this,  opposing  forces  were  at  work.  The 
influence  of  Wycliffe  was  not  dead ;  and 
through  the  influence  of  the  New  Learning, 
Erasmus,  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  others,  the 
intelligence  of  millions  was  being  awakened. 
Not  that  there  seemed  any  great  hope  of 
a  reformation.  In  spite  of  Erasmus's 
scathing  exposures  of  the  corrupt  clergy,  and 
the  terrible  condition  of  the  monasteries,  and 
even  although  the  people  groaned  under  the 

12 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

burdens  they  bore,  nothing  was  done.  The 
bishops  and  abbots  maintained  their  haughty 
pride,  and  the  priests  and  monks  continued 
largely  as  they  were.  They  had  power, 
spiritual  and  temporal ;  they  had  wealth 
untold  ;  they  had  laws  to  suit  themselves  ; 
the  word  of  the  Popes  was  supreme,  and 
the  Popes,  for  many  years,  had  not  en- 
couraged reform,  but  had,  by  life  and 
example,  fostered  the  corrupt  condition  of 
the  Church.  As  Erasmus  says  :  "  I  saw 
with  my  own  eyes  Pope  Julian  II.  at 
Bologna,  and  afterwards  at  Rome,  marching 
at  the  head  of  a  triumphal  procession,  as 
if  he  were  Pompey  or  Caesar.  St.  Peter 
subdued  the  world  with  faith,  not  with  arms 
or  soldiers  or  military  engines.  St.  Peter's 
successors  would  win  as  many  victories  as 
St.  Peter  if  they  had  Peter's  spirit." 

Indeed,  many,  who  longed  and  prayed  for 
the  purification  of  the  Church  had  no  faith 
that  the  purification  would  come.  Erasmus 
had  poured  forth  his  writings  and  had 
altered  nothing.  Sir  Thomas  More  and 
Colet  had  produced  but  little  apparent 
effect.  The  Church  was  filled  with  the 
world  and  the  flesh  and  the  devil,  but  no 

13 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

one  rose  with  sufficient  might  or  power  to 
fight  the  enemy  that  had  conquered.  It  was 
not  the  enemy  from  without  that  the  people 
needed  to  fear ;  it  was  the  enemy  which 
nestled  in  the  very  bosom  of  the  Church — 
the  enemy  of  mammonism,  of  corruption,  of 
superstition,  of  lies,  of  moral  cowardice.  The 
common  people  were  ignorant  of  the  real 
issues  at  stake,  and  they  were  the  slaves 
of  the  clergy ;  the  nobles,  many  of  them, 
railed  at  the  clergy,  but  were  powerless.  The 
scholars  found  that  the  evils  of  the  time 
could  not  be  cast  out  by  scholarship,  and 
yet  they  could  think  of  nothing  whereby  the 
sadly  needed  reforms  could  be  brought 
about.  Erasmus  himself  did  not  seem  to 
have  much  hope  of  reform. 

"  The  stupid  monks,"  he  writes,  "  say  Mass 
as  a  cobbler  makes  a  shoe,  they  come  to 
the  altar  reeking  from  their  filthy  pleasures. 
Confession  with  the  monks  is  a  cloak  to 
steal  the  people's  money,  to  rob  girls  of 
their  virtue,  and  to  commit  other  crimes  too 
horrible  to  name  !  Yet  these  people  are  the 
tyrants  of  Europe.  The  Pope  himself  is 
afraid  of  them." 

Again  he  writes  concerning  them  : 

14 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

"  What  fungus  could  be  more  stupid?  Yet 
these  are  the  Atlases  who  uphold  the 
tottering  Church  I  " 

iWhen  one  realises  that  the  Church  owned 
a  third,  a  half,  and  sometimes  two-thirds  of 
the  land  in  almost  every  country  in  Europe, 
and  remembers  the  power  which  attaches 
itself  to  such  ownership,  it  plainly  appears 
that  all  probability  of  reform  was  very  small. 
The  great  bulk  of  the  clergy  was  content 
with  things  as  they  were,  and  while  the 
people  were  everywhere  asking  questions 
no  prospect  of  reform  appeared. 

The  Reformation  began  in  a  most  un- 
expected way  and  in  a  most  unexpected 
place.  No  one  would  have  dreamed  that  a 
sleepy  German  village  would  become  the 
centre  of  a  movement  that  was  destined  to 
shake  Europe  to  its  foundations  and  alter 
the  history  of  tlie  world.  Yet  so  it  was. 
No  one  would  have  expected  that  an  un- 
known monk  would  become  the  centre  of 
this  movement,  but  this  was  wliat  came  to 
pass. 

"  The  hour  and  the  man  I  " 

This  phrase  has  become  a  commonplace 
in  our  vocabulary,  and  it  expresses  correctly 

IS 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

one  of  the  most  dramatic  events  in  the 
history  of  the  world. 

In  the  year  1517a  new  cathedral  was 
being  built  in  Rome.  Michael  Angelo 
had  prepared  the  plans  for  this  mighty 
building,  and  Pope  Leo  X.,  whom  Thomas 
Carlyle  called  "  an  elegant  Pagan,"  was  de- 
termined to  complete  what  should  be  the 
grandest  structure  ever  erected  by  man. 
The  great  difficulty  with  which  the  Pope  was 
met  was  want  of  money.  Untold  millions 
were  needed,  and  the  Pope,  a  man  who  loved 
luxury  and  had  lavished  the  wealth  of  the 
nation  freely,  found  himself  in  a  difficulty. 

He  determined  to  resort  to  the  sale  of 
indulgences — pardons  for  sins.  I  have  not 
space  to  detail  how  this  custom  grew  up 
in  the  Church.  Enough  to  say  that  by 
various  decrees,  the  Church  claimed  the 
power,  and  Pope  Leo  decided  to  send  out 
through  Christendom,  by  distinguished 
persons,  letters  of  indulgences,  or  pardons 
which  could  be  bought  by  the  people.  A 
regular  tariff  was  fixed.  A  pardon  for 
polygamy  could  be  obtained  for  six  ducats, 
that  for  sacrilege  and  perjury,  cost  nine, 
forgiveness    for    murder    cost    eight,    while 

16 


Why  England    became   Protestant 

absolution  for  sins  of  a  less  criminal  nature 
could  be  obtained  for  smaller  sums.  In  past 
years  people  had  to  make  pilgrimages  in 
order  to  obtain  pardons ;  of  course,  they 
had  to  pay  as  well,  but  they  had  to  go  to 
some  particular  shrine.  By  Pope  Leo's 
scheme,  however,  these  pardons  were  to  be 
hawked  throughout  the  town  and  villages 
of  Christendom,  as  a  pedlar  hawked  his 
wares. 

In  the  case  of  Saxony,  in  which  province 
•Wittenberg  was  situated,  the  Pope  had 
arranged  with  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence 
to  share  the  proceeds  of  these  sales  of 
pardons,  and  the  business  commenced.  The 
salesman  appointed  to  Saxony  was  a  certain 
Dr.  John  Tetzel,  a  Dominican  monk,  who 
was  for  a  time  eminently,  successful,  and 
things  went  well. 

These  sales,  moreover,  were  exceedingly 
popular,  and  the  coming  of  the  salesman 
to  the  town  or  village  meant  a  general 
holiday.  Erom  all  we  can  gather,  moreover, 
Dr.  Tctzcl  entered  each  place  in  state.  The 
officials  of  the  town  went  forth  to  meet  him, 
clad  in  their  official  robes,  while  Dr.  Tetzel 
was  seated  in  a  gaudy  carriage  drawn  by  a 

17  c 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

fine  pair  of  horses.  As  the  carriage  entered 
the  town,  a  person  in  authority  said,  in  a 
loud  voice  : 

"  The  Grace  of  God  and  of  the  Holy 
Eather  is  at  your  gates." 

Presently  the  people  entered  the  church, 
a  strong  box  to  contain  the  money,  was 
placed  near  the  altar,  and  Tetzel  mounted 
the  pulpit  and  began  to  preach. 

Reports  of  Tetzel's  sermons  are  still  ex- 
tant, while  the  actual  box  in  which  the 
people's  money  was  put  can  be  seen  to-day 
in  the  cathedral  at  Magdeberg.  Of  course, 
the  whole  affair  was  a  matter  of  money- 
making.  People  were  urged  to  gain  forgive- 
ness for  their  sins  for  trifling  sums  ;  they 
were  besought  to  get  their  friends  out  of 
purgatory  in  the  same  way. 

"  The  moment  the  money  touches  the 
bottom  of  that  box,"  cried  Tetzel,  thumping 
the  great  casket  ostentatiously,  "  the  soul 
escapes  purgatory  and  flies  straight  to 
paradise  1  " 

Acolytes  went  among  the  people  and  be- 
sought them  to  buy  the  Pope's  letters.  If 
any  one  expressed  any  doubts  about  the 
validity  of  these  letters,  he  was  threatened 

i8 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

with  excommunication.  And  the  people, 
large  numbers  of  them,  bought  the  letters, 
paid  the  money,  and  the  Pope's  coffers 
filled. 

Concerning  the  condition  of  the  Church 
which  could  carry,  on  such  a  business  I 
need  say  nothing.  The  thing  commonly 
obtained,  and  no  voice  was  raised,  or  if 
raised  it  was  quickly  stifled.  In  any  case, 
these  salesmen  of  the  Pope  went  from 
town  to  town,  and  no  effective  protest  was 
heard,  until  Tctzel  came  to  a  village  near 
Wittenberg. 

The  hour  for  Reformation  had  come,  but 
where  was  the  Man?  For,  as  can  be  easily 
seen,  the  man  who  could  attack  abuses  which 
were  favoured  by  the  Pope  must  brave  the 
mightiest  power  in  the  world.  Moreover, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  those  who  in  the 
past,  like  John  Huss  of  Bohemia  and  Jerome 
of  Prague,  had  dared  to  try  and  reform  the 
Church  had  been  burned  for  their  pains. 

Erasmus  declined  to  take  any  decisive 
step. 

"  As  for  me,"  he  wrote  to  Archbishop 
Wareham,  "  I  have  no  inclination  to  risk 
my   life    for   the    truth.      We    have    not   all 

"9 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

strength  for  martyrdom,  and  if  trouble 
comes  I  shall  imitate  St.  Peter.  Popes  and 
emperors  must  settle  the  creeds.  If  they 
settle  them  well,  so  much  the  better;  if 
ill,  I  shall  keep  on  the  safe  side." 

Thus,  much  as  the  Reformation  owed  to 
Erasmus,  it  was  not  brought  about  by  him, 
but  by  a  man  of  a  different  order.    ( 

There  is  but  little  need  to  give  a  lengthy 
sketch  of  Martin  Luther  here.  'His  portrait 
has  been  drawn  many  times  by  abler  hands 
than  mine,  and  the  story  of  his  life  has  been 
told  by  some  of  the  most  skilful  writers. 
And  such  a  story  1  Perhaps  among  the 
writings  of  our  most  vivid  romancers  there 
is  nothing  to  compare  with  the  romance  of 
Luther's  life.  Certainly  neither  Sir  Walter 
Scott  nor  Alexandre  Dumas  has  ever,  even 
in  the  highest  flights  of  his  imagination, 
written  anything  so  thrilling  as  the  story  of 
the  German  miner's  son. 

Nearly  four  hundred  years  have  passed 
away  since  the  chief  events  of  his  life  took 
place,  but  the  character  of  the  man  is  still 
remembered.  A  plain  man — rough  perhaps, 
as  was  natural,  considering  his  origin — but 
an  honest  man,  a  true  man,  a  thorough  man, 

20 


Why  England  became  Protestant 

and  as  brave  as  a  lion.  As  I  study  the 
various  literatures  which  I  have  happened 
to  read  concerning  him,  I  am  impressed  with 
the  simple-mindedness  and  strength  of  this 
German  peasant.  His  whole  life  had,  up  to 
the  time  he  came  into  prominence,  been  a 
search  for  reality,  for  truth.  His  experi- 
ences as  a  monk  at  Erfurt  reveals  this.  No 
one  was  more  punctilious  than  he  concerning 
monkish  practices  ;  he  obeyed  the  dictates 
of  the  Church  with  the  minutest  care,  and 
presently  came  to  see  how  valueless  they 
were.  He  became  a  monk  in  order  to  find 
peace  with  God  and  to  save  his  soul.  In 
this  he  was  disappointed.  It  was  not  until 
he  found  a  co^y  of  that  old  Latin  Bible, 
of  which  all  the  world  knows,  that  he  under- 
stood the  way  of  salvation.  Having  found 
it,  he  held  to  the  vital  truths  of  the  gospel 
with  great  joy.  lie  had  no  thought  of  being 
a  reformer.  He  did  not  doubt  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church,  even  although  he  found  no 
peace  through  them.  When  he  went  to 
Rome  it  was  as  an  humble  believer,  but 
Rome  shocked  him,  bewildered  him.  He 
expected  to  find  Rome  the  home  of  piety  ; 
he  found  it  a  cesspool  of  vice,  a  very  temple 

21 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

of  paganism.     "  Let  all  who  would  lead  the 
holy  life  avoid  Rome,"  he  said. 

He  had  not  the  brilliance  of  Erasmus, 
but  he  was  not  an  ignorant  man.  Rather 
he  was  a  learned  man,  and  a  thinker.  His 
disputations  with  Dr.  Eck  at  Leipsic  reveal 
him,  not  only  as  a  scholar,  but  as  a  close 
reasoner,  a  keen  debater.  'He  saw  into  the 
heart  of  a  thing  in  a  moment,  and  had  a 
gift  for  fastening  upon  essentials.  He 
scorned  lies  and  subterfuges.  Of  course, 
he  was  a  child  of  his  age  ;  he  was  super- 
stitious ;  he  believed  in  witches,  and 
charms,  and  the  personal  appearance  of 
the  devil.  But  there  was  nothing  little 
about  Martin  Luther.  Rather  he  was  a 
great  man,  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word. 
Great,  not  so  much  because  of  his  intel- 
lectual superiority  to  other  men,  but  great 
because  he  was  large  of  mind  and  heart 
and  purpose.  Behind  all  he  did  was  single- 
mindedness  and  single-heartedness,  and, 
above  all,  he  was  a  man  of  God.  "  What  is 
the  life  of  Martin  Luther,  or  of  a  hundred 
Martin  Luthers,  compared  with  the  truth  of 
God?  "  he  cried.  "  Let  God's  truth  prevail, 
whatever  becomes  of  individuals," 

22 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

'He  cared  little  about  trifles,  but  laid  hold 
on  essentials.  Carlyle  tells  a  story  about 
him  which  illustrates  this.  When  the 
Reformation  became  a  power,  some  of  the 
preachers  came  to  Luther,  complaining  that 
certain  of  their  brethren  insisted  on  wearing 
cassocks.  They  asked  Luther  to  prohibit 
this  **  Popish  practice."  "  What  do  cassocks 
matter?  "  cried  Luther  ;  "  let  them  wear  five 
cassocks  if  they  wish  1  " 

A  human,  kindly  man  he  was  too. 
"  Never  be  hard  to  children,"  he  used  to 
say.  "  Many  a  fine  character  has  been 
ruined  by  the  stupid  brutality  of  pedagogues. 
Punish  if  you  will,  but  be  kind  too,  and  let 
the  sugarplum  go  with  the  rod."  Personally 
I  know  of  no  letter  written  to  a  child  superior 
to  that  which  Luther  wrote  to  his  little  boy 
Hans. 

Moreover,  he  had  a  sense  of  humour.  He 
loved  a  quick  repartee,  a  joke,  a  laugh,  and 
no  one  can  read  his  Life  without  being  struck 
by  this  phase  of  his  character.  But  beneath 
it  all  he  was  a  man  of  great  purpose,  of 
a  determined  will,  one  who  scorned  mean- 
ness and  subterfuge  and  lies.  A  great, 
rugged    man,    sometimes    coarse,    but    ever 

23 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

honest,  a  terrible  fighter,  and  a  true  friend. 
This,  then,  was  the  man  who  became  the 
central   figure   in   the   Reformation. 

He  had  been  appointed  as  professor  in 
the  new  University  at  Wittenberg,  and  a 
preacher  in  one  of  the  two  churches  which 
remain   in  that  town   to-day. 

Shortly  after  Tetzel  had  visited  a  village 
near  Wittenberg,  a  woman  came  to  Luther 
for  confession.  Luther  told  her  that  in 
order  for  her  sins  to  be  forgiven  she 
must  repent  of  them  and  she  must  have 
faith  in  her  Saviour.  The  woman  said  that 
there  was  no  need  of  this,  and  she  told  him 
of  the  letter  of  pardon  which  she  had  bought 
from  Tetzel. 

"  Let  me  see  it,"  said  Luther. 

The  woman  gave  it  to  him. 

"An  emparchmented  lie  !  "  exclaimed  the 
monk  as  he  read. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  whole 
movement  which  was  destined  to  shake  the 
world. 

»He  wrote  to  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence, 
protesting  against  what  he  declared  to  be 
a  blasphemy  against  God. 

The  Archbishop  consigned  the  letter  to 

24 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

the  rubbish -heap .  Thereupon  Luther  nailed 
his  ninety-five  theses  against  indulgences  on 
the  door  of  the  castle  church  at  Wittenberg. 
The  door  has  since  been  burnt,  but  the  father 
of  the  present  Emperor  of  Germany  replaced 
k  a  few  years  ago  with  a  bronze  door,  on 
which  those  theses  are  engraved.  It  is  one 
of  the  sights  of  Wittenberg  to-day. 

The  nailing  of  those  theses,  or  proposi- 
tions, although  they  seem  commonplace  and 
mild  to-day,  aroused  Saxony  ;  the  news  of 
the  deed  travelled  around  Germany,  and  for 
the  first  time  the  name  of  Martin  Luther 
began  to  be  known  among  the  German 
people. 

Dr.  Tetzel  thundered  back  his  reply,  and 
then  Luther  mounted  the  steps  of  the  pulpit 
of  the  church  in  the  market-place  in  Witten- 
berg and  gave  his  answer  to  Tetzel.  The 
church  and  pulpit  remain  to-day  pretty  much 
as  they  existed  then.  When,  visiting  Witten- 
berg in  1908,  I  climbed  the  pulpit  and 
looked  out  on  the  great  building,  I  was  able 
to  people  the  pews  and  to  hear  the  voice 
that  was  soon  ringing  over  all  Germany. 

This  sermon  of  Luther's  was  followed  by 
argument,  retort,  and  wordy  warfare.     But 

25 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

this  fact  appears  :  Euther  expressed  what 
the  people  felt,  and  thousands  rejoiced  that 
a  prophet  had  arisen  in  Germany.  Not  that 
Luther  had  any  idea  of  reforming  the  Church 
as  a  whole.  He  never  dreamed  of  the  fires 
he  was  kindling.  He  was  only  an  unknown 
monk,  while  the  Pope  was  master  of  the 
world.  He  only  did  what  seemed  right  to 
do,  and,  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  fearful 
ones  he  maintained  his  ground.  These 
pardons  for  sins  were  merely  "  emparch- 
mented  lies."  They  were  not  worth  the 
paper  on  which  they  were  written ;  they 
were  dragging  souls  deeper  into  hell  instead 
of  saving  them,  and  he  could  not  be  quiet. 

When  at  length  the  news  reached  Rome 
the  Pope  laughed.  "  'Tis  only  a  German 
monk  who  has  drunk  too  much  beer,"  he 
said.  "  When  he  gets  sober,  he'll  alter  his 
story."  But  the  Pope  found  out  his 
mistake. 

Doubtless  Luther  would  have  been  killed 
but  for  two  facts.  First,  the  Elector 
Frederick  of  Saxony  was  an  honest  man,  who, 
while  adhering  to  the  Church,  saw  the  need 
for  Luther's  work.  Second,  the  revival  of 
learning  had  had  its  effect,  and  had  pre- 

26 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

pared  the  people's  minds  for  the  reception 
of  what  L'uther  taught. 

The  Pope  told  the  Elector  to  do  his  duty 
by  Luther,  but  this  wary  Saxon  had  read 
his  propositions,  and  had  also  read  the  New 
Testament.  "  There  is  a  great  deal  in  the 
Bible  about  Christ,  but  very  little  about 
Rome,"  he  said.  Presently  he  sent  for 
Erasmus  and  asked  his  opinion.  The  wit's 
reply  was  characteristic. 

"  Luther  has  committed  two  sins,"  said 
Erasmus.  "He  has  touched  the  Pope's 
crown  and  the  monks'  stomachs."     Exactly  I 

But  the  war  of  words  went  on.  The 
printing  press  had  recently  become  a  power 
in  Europe,  and  the  writings  of  both  sides 
were  printed  rapidly. 

Naturally,  Luther,  in  replying  to  Tetzel, 
had  been  led  to  study  various  questions 
which  had  never  seriously  troubled  him 
before,  with  the  result  that  he  found  that 
the  whole  Church  was  riddled  with  error, 
and  that  it  bore  but  little  resemblance  to 
the  teachings  of  its  Founder. 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  the  battle  step 
by  step,  but  presently  Luther  was  summoned 
to  Augsburg  to  answer  the  charges  brought 

27 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

against  him.  At  length  the  Pope  began  to 
see  that  the  Reformation  was  not  a  matter 
of  beer,  especially  as  the  best  life  of 
Germany  sided  with  the  Wittenberg  monk. 

I  have  often  wished  that  some  great 
painter  >vould  take  Luther's  journey  to 
Augsburg  as  the  subject  for  a  painting.  He 
travelled  the  whole  distance  on  foot,  some- 
where, I  think,  between  two  and  three 
hundred  miles.  You  can  fancy  him  clad  in 
his  brown  frock,  his  feet  shod  in  sandals, 
a  staflf  in  his  hand,  while  his  great,  rugged 
face  wore  a  look  of  resolve,  if  not  defiance. 

"  Luther  for  ever  I  "  cried  the  people  as 
he  left  the  Elster  Gate. 

"  No,  my  children,"  he  answered,  "  Christ 
for  ever  I  " 

Cardinal  Cajetan  was  sent  from  Rome  to 
deal  with  Luther,  and,  as  he  said,  he  came 
not  to  argue,  but  to  command. 

''  Revocaf  was  his  command. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Luther,  "  I  will  recant 
everything  I  have  written  and  said  against 
the  Bible." 

"  The  Pope  is  supreme,"  replied  the 
Cardinal. 

"  Not  over  the  Scriptures,"  replied  Luther. 

28 


Why  England   became   Protestant 

Presently  the  Cardinal  lost  his  temper. 

"  .What  1  "  he  cried.  "  Do  you  think  that 
the  Pope  cares  for  the  opinion  of  a  German 
boor?  The  Pope's  little  finger  is  stronger 
than  all  Germany.  Do  you  expect  your 
princes  to  take  up  arms  to  defend  you — you, 
a  wretched  worm  like  you  ?  I  tell  you  no  I 
and  where  will  you  be  then?" 

"  Then  as  now — in  the  hands  of  Almighty 
God,"  replied  Martin. 

As  Cajetan  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"  (What  could  you  do  with  a  man  like 
that?" 

Still  the  warfare  continued  and  the  move- 
ment spread.  Argument  followed  argument, 
disputation  followed  disputation,  book  fol- 
lowed book.  The  question  had  assumed 
larger  proportions  by  this  time.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  indulgences,  but  the 
truth  of  the  Papacy  itself.  Not  only  were 
indulgences  a  foul  thing,  dragging  people 
to  ruin,  but  the  whole  Papal  system,  the 
authority  of  the  Pope,  rested  on  lies,  forged 
decretals,  spurious  writings,  and  nowhere 
had  warrant  in  the  Word  of  God. 

After  the  Augsburg  visit  Luther  had  dug 
deep  into  the  whole  question  ;  and  he  who  at 

29 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

the  beginning  only  desired  to  deal  with  the 
abuse  called  indulgences  now  saw  that  the 
very  foundations  of  the  Papacy  were  a  lie, 
and  that  the  system  which  was  built  upon  it 
rested  upon  falsehood. 

At  least,  that  was  what  he  maintained, 
what  he  proclaimed  by  tongue  and  by  pen, 
and  the  people  believed  him. 

Of  course,  the  bishops  and  the  priests 
were  against  him.  The  monks  howled 
against  him  from  a  thousand  pulpits.  'He 
was  cursed  by  every  curse  known,  and  new 
ones  were  invented.  If  masses  could  not  get 
souls  out  of  purgatory,  their  trade  was  gone. 
If  Luther's  doctrines  were  believed,  their 
power  was  gone,  and  they  determined  to 
fight  him  to  the  death — but  the  people 
believed  him. 

At  length  Luther  was  cursed  from  Rome, 
and  a  Bull  came  condemning  both  him  and 
his  works.  This  reached  Wittenberg  in 
December,  1520,  and  then  Luther  caused 
a  placard  to  be  nailed  on  the  gates  of  the 
University  and  on  other  public  places,  in- 
viting the  people  to  meet  him  at  the  eastern 
gate  of  the  town  on  the  ninth  day  of  the 
month. 

30 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

And  the  people  came.  A  fire  was  lit,  and 
Luther  threw  the  Pope's  Bull  into  the  fire. 
"  There,"  he  said  in  effect,  "  that  is  what 
I  think  of  the  Pope  and  his  power."  And 
as  the  people  heard  they  gave  a  great  shout, 
which  not  only  swept  across  the  plains  of 
Saxony,  but  echoed  among  the  Swiss  moun- 
tains, among  the  mountains  of  Norway  and 
the  Netherlands,  and  across  the  seas  to 
England.  As  Thomas  Carlyle  says,  "  it  was 
the  shout  of  the  awakening  nations." 

Then  Luther  returned  to  the  monastery, 
and  went  on  with  his  work. 

In  I  52  I  he  was  summoned  to  the  Diet  of 
Worms,  to  answer  for  what  he  had  been 
saying  and  doing.  Luther  went.  Many 
tried  to  dissuade  him,  but  he  did  not  heed 
them.  "  God  hath  need  of  me,"  he  said, 
"and  I  go." 

'He  travelled  from  Wittenberg  to  Worms, 
some  two  hundred  miles,  in  an  ox-cart  which 
had  been  fitted  up  for  his  journey,  and 
during  most  of  the  way  it  was  like  the 
triumphal  march  of  a  great  king. 

"  Do  not  forsake  us.  Dr.  Luther,"  was 
the  cry  everywhere,  and  Luther's  reply  was 
that,  God  helping  him,  he  would  not  fail. 

31 


Shall    Rome   Reconquer  England 

I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  that  journey 
here,  especially  as  I  have  written  of  it  at 
length  elsewhere.'  Suffice  to  say  that  he 
reached  the  city  in  spite  of  many  entreaties  to 
turn  back  and  in  spite  of  plots  to  keep  him 
away.  It  was  during  this  journey  that  he 
uttered  those  historic  words  which  have  rung 
down  through  the  ages  :  "  Wenn  so  vie  I 
Teufel  zu  Worms  wdren,  als  Zeegal  auf  den 
Ddchern  noch  wollt  Ich  hineln  " — "  Were 
there  as  many  devils  in  Worms  as  there  are 
tiles  on  the  housetops,  I  would  go." 

'He  was  arraigned  before  the  greatest 
judgment-seat  ever  known  in  history  up  to 
that  time.  Representatives  from  almost 
every  Court  of  Europe  were  there,  and  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  who  reigned  over  a 
great  part  of  the  Continent,  sat  as  chief 
among  the  judges. 

Before  this  mighty  tribunal  L'uther  stood 
alone. 

The  questions  put  before  him  were 
two  :  First,  were  the  pile  of  books  before 
him  his  production?  Second,  would  he 
recant  what  he  had  written  ? 

He  acknowledged  the  authorship  of  the 
'  "  The  Sword  of  the  Lord." 
32 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

books  ;  and  with  regard  to  the  second  ques- 
tion, he  was  willing  to  recant  anything  that 
was  opposed  to  the  -Word  of  God.  He  spoke 
for  hours,  and  the  excitement  was  intense. 
He  proved  that  the  Bible  must  be  the  final 
authority,  and  not  Councils,  and  there  he 
must  leave  the  matter. 

The    Chancellor    of    Treves    cried    out  : 

"  You  have  not  answered  the  questions  put 
you.  .You  were  not  summoned  hither  to  call 
in  question  the  decisions  of  Councils.  You 
are  required  to  give  a  clear  and  precise 
answer.     iWill  you  or  will  you  not  retract?  " 

A  great  silence  hung  upon  the  assembly, 
for,  as  it  seemed  to  all,  not  only  did  Luther's 
life  hang  upon  a  thread,  but  all  that  he  had 
been  struggling  for  would  stand  or  fall  by 
his  reply. 

"  Since  your  Majesty  demands  a  clear  and 

simple  and  precise  answer,"  he  said,  "  I  will 

give  you  one,  and  it  is  this  :   /  cannot  submit 

'my  faith  to  Pope  or  X^ouncils,  because  it  is 

as  clear  as  the  day  that  they  have  frequently 

erred  and  contradicted  each  other .     Unless 

I  am  convinced,  therefore,  by  tlie  testimony 

of  Scripture,  or  by  the  clearest  reasoning — 

unless   I   am   persuaded   by   means   of  the, 

passages  I  have  quoted,  and  unless  they  then 

}3  D 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

render  my  conscience  hound  by  the  Word 
of  God,  I  cannot  and  I  will  not  retract,  for 
it  is  unsafe  for  a  Christian  to  speak  against 
his  conscience.'" 

His  words  fell  like  a  shock  upon  the 
assembly,  and  men  looked  at  each  other, 
wondering  what  would  happen  next.  And 
Luther,  realising  the  purport  of  what  he  had 
said,  uttered  those  memorable  words  : 

*'  Here  I  stand.  I  can  do  no  other. 
May  God  help  me;.     Amen  !  "  ^ 

The  Sage  of  Chelsea  says  this  was  the 
greatest  scene  in  modern  history.  To  use 
his  exact  words  :  "  English  puritanism, 
England  and  its  parliaments,  Americas,  and 
the  vast  work  of  two  centuries,  the  French 
Revolution,  Europe  and  its  work  everywhere 
at  present, — the  germ  of  it  all  lay  here  1  " 

I  need  not  follow  the  story  farther. 
Luther  was  conveyed  to  Wartburg  Castle, 
where  he  translated  the  Scriptures ;  and 
from  that  time  the  Reformation  was  an 
established  fact,  as  far  as  Germany  was  con- 
cerned. The  people  embraced  the  doctrines 
of  Luther,  and  the  Papal  throne  was  denuded 
of  its  power. 

'  Dr.  Lindsay,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Reformation,"  does  not 
record  this.  He  says  that  Li:ther's  last  words  were,  "Got  kutn  mir 
zn  hilf"  ("  God  come  to  my  help  ").     Vol.  i.  p.  291. 

34 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  the  work 
that  others  did  in  the  Reformation  on  the 
Continent.  Luther  was  the  centre  of  the 
movement,  aUhough  it  could  never  have 
wrought  the  change  it  did  but  for  men  like 
Melanchthon  and  Reuchlin  and  Zwingli. 
They,  in  their  way,  were  as  important  as  he, 
but  in  this  sketch  I  have  given  the  main 
features  of  the  great  Spiritual  Revolution 
which  took  place  between   i  5  1 7  and   i  5  2 1 . 

At  least  the  gist  of  the  matter  can  be 
stated  in  a  few  words,  and  perhaps  I  can 
do  no  better  here  than  to  quote  from  James 
Anthony  Froude  the  historian.  Referring  to 
Luther's  answer  before  the  Diet,   he  says  : 

**  There,  as  you  understand,  the  heart  of 
the  whole  matter  indeed  rested.  In  those 
words  lay  the  whole  meaning  of  the 
Reformation.  Were  men  to  go  on  for  ever 
saying  that  this  or  that  was  true  because  the 
Pope  affirmed  it  ?  or  were  the  Pope's  decrees 
thenceforward  to  be  tried  like  the  words  of 
other  men — by  the  ordinary  laws  of 
evidence?  " 

The  people  demanded  the  right  to  think 
for  themselves,  and  the  Pope's  power  was 
broken  for  ever. 

35 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

Of  course,  the  movement,  which  swept 
over  Germany  like  wildfire,  also  affected 
other  countries.  It  invaded  Switzerland, 
and  largely  conquered  it.  It  marched  to 
Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  and  became 
triumphant.  It  entered  the  Netherlands, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  most  terrible  deeds  ever 
done,  became  the  great  power  of  Holland. 
It  came  to  England,  and  a  new  life  began 
to  pulse  in  the  veins  of  the  nation. 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  the  Reformation 
had  a  different  history  in  England  from  what 
it  had  in  Germany,  but  the  final  issues  were 
the  same. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  discuss  the 
allegation  that  Protestantism  in  England  won 
simply  because  of  the  fact  that  the  Pope 
refused     to     listen     to     the     appeals     of  j 

Henry  VIII.,  and  condemned  his  unbridled 
passions.  I  have  no  brief  for  Henry  VIII., 
neither  do  I  deny  that  Henry's  actions  had 
much  political  importance.  But  I  do  not 
wish  to  deal  with  Protestantism  as  a  political 
matter,  but  as  a  great  religious  movement. 
The  truth  is,  no  real  Reformation  took  place 
in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  Protestantism, 
real  Protestantism,  did  not  become  a  vital 

36 


( 


Why  England   became   Protestant 

power  in  England  until  long  after  Henry 
was  buried  with  his  fathers.  Church  laws 
might  be  passed,  but  they  did  not  touch  the 
heart  of  religion.  Changes  in  laws  do  not 
change  the  faith  of  a  people.  Moreover, 
we  must  remember  that  Henry  won  for  him- 
self the  title  of  "  Defender  of  the  Faith  " 
by  opposing  Luther  and  by  seeking  to  refute 
his  doctrines.  Henry  was  no  friend  of 
Luther  ;  neither  did  the  nation  accept  the 
Protestant  faith  under  him.  The  religion 
that  changes  by  Acts  of  Parliament  is  a  very 
poor  thing  ;  and,  beyond  a  general  unsettle- 
ment  of  beliefs  in  Henry's  time,  there  was 
no  vital  and  general  change  of  religion. 

It  is  true  the  nation  was  under  the  ban  of 
Rome,  as  it  continued  to  be  during  the  short 
reign  of  the  boy  Edward  VI .,  but  the  people 
never  accepted  the  Protestant  faith  with  any- 
thing like  reality.  This  may  be  easily  seen 
when  wc  realise  that  on  Edward's  death  and 
on  Mary's  accession  England  was  reconciled 
to  Rome.  The  clergy  to  a  very  large  extent 
vowed  submission  to  the  See  of  Rome,  and 
the  curses  of  the  Church  were  formally  re- 
voked. Indeed,  the  Italian  legate  declared 
that    people    accepted    reconciliation    with 

37 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Rome  with  tears  of  joy,  and  there  was 
general  rejoicmg. 

It  must  not  be  understood,  however,  that 
there  were  not  a  large  number  who  had 
embraced  the  Protestant  faith.  Both  among 
the  clergy  and  the  laity  there  were  a  number 
to  whom  the  simple  gospel  of  Christ  had 
become  the  great  truth  of  life.  The  right 
to  read  the  Scriptures  and  the  influence  of 
the  movement  on  the  Continent  had  had 
their  effect,  so  that  while  the  nation  had 
in  no  real  sense  become  Protestant  during 
the  reign  of  Henry,  VIII.  and  of 
Edward  VI.,  there  were  numbers  of  the 
people  to  whom  Protestantism  was  a  vital 
reality. 

None  felt  this  more  keenly  than  Mary 
and  her  advisers,  and  directly  after  recon- 
ciliation with  Rome  persecutions  com- 
menced. Space  will  not  permit  me  to  deal 
with  them  at  length,  yet  they  must  be  men- 
tioned here,  because  it  was  largely  through 
them  that  England  threw  off  the  Papal  yoke. 

Immediately  following  the  removal  of  the 
Pope's  curse,  the  clergy  and  the  laity  had 
to  be  "  individually  reconciled."  A  day  was 
appointed   when  the   clergy  should  appear 

38 


Why  England  became  Protestant 

with  their  confession  ;  and  when  they  had 
made  it,  they  had  to  exhort  the  laity  to 
accept  the  grace  offered  to  them.  To  this 
end  a  register  was  to  be  kept  in  every 
diocese,  where  the  names  of  all  who  sub- 
mitted were  registered. 

Evidently  Cardinal  Pole  imagined  that 
there  might  be  many  who  would  refuse  to 
submit,  for  he  declared  that  "  before 
heretics  were  punished  by  death  mild  means 
should  first  be  tried  with  them."  What  these 
"  mild  means  "  were  history,  has  recorded. 
Possibly  two  clergymen  of  eminent  piety, 
named  Rogers  and  Hooper,  were  in  his 
mind  at  the  time  he  expressed  this 
determination.  Hooper  was  Bishop  of 
Gloucester.  Both  of  these  men  were 
thrown  into  prison,  and  it  was  with  them 
that  the  persecutions  commenced.  -When 
they  appeared  before  the  court  they  were 
told  to  make  their  submission,  and,  on 
attempting  to  give  reasons  for  not  doing  so, 
were  silenced,  and  told  that  they  had  twenty- 
four  hours  in  which  to  make  up  their  minds. 

As  they  left  tlie  church  on  their  way  to 
prison,  Hooper  was  heard  to  say,  "  Come, 
brother  Rogers,  must  we  two  take  this  matter 

39 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

first  in  hand  and  fry,  these  faggots  ?  " 
"  Yea,  sir,  with  God's  grace,"  replied 
Rogers.  "  Doubt  not  but  that  God  will  give 
us  strength,"  said  Hooper. 

The  next  morning  they  were  remanded 
again,  and  the  "  Queen's  mercy  "  was  offered 
them  if  they  would  recant.  They  refused, 
and  were  sentenced  to  die.  Rogers  re- 
quested that  he  might  be  allowed  to  see  his 
wife.  Stephen  Gardiner,  who  stood  high  in 
the  Councils  of  her  Majesty,  refused  with 
a  savage  taunt.  "  Rogers,"  as  the  illustrious 
Bradford  said,  "  was  to  break  the  ice,  and  he 
was  led  to  the  fire  at  Smithfield  amid  the 
sneers  of  the  Catholics,  who  believed,  as 
Cardinal  Pole  said,  that  "  the  Protestants 
had  no  doctrine  to  stand  the  fire."  It  is 
recorded  of  him  that  when  on  his  way  to  the 
stake,  his  wife  and  family,  who  had  not  been 
allowed  to  see  him  in  private,  met  him— r 
there  were  nine  children,  one  of  them  being 
a  babe  at  the  breast — and  they  welcomed 
him  with  cries  of  joy,  "  as  though  he  were  on 
his  way  to  a  festival."  At  the  last  moment 
he  was  offered  pardon  if  he  would  recant, 
but  he  refused.  The  fire  was  lighted,  and 
Sir  Robert  Rochester,  who  was  at  the  stake 

40 


Why  England  became  Protestant 

to  report  his  behaviour,  says  that  his  suffer- 
ings seemed  but  as  nothing.  He  bathed  his 
hands  in  the  flame  as  if  it  were  cold  water, 
raised  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and  died. 

Hooper  suffered  death  at  Gloucester.  His 
agonies  were  terrible,  yet  he  remained  stead- 
fast. Hooper  went  to  heaven  in  a  chariot 
of  fire. 

On  the  same  day  Rowland  Taylor  was 
burnt  on  Aldham  Common,  in  Suffolk. 
Laurence  Sandars  had  been  burned  the 
day  before  at  Coventry,  kissing  the  stake 
and  crying,  "  Welcome  the  cross  of  Christ  I 
Welcome  everlasting  life  I  " 

These  were  the  firstfruits  of  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  England  with  the  "  Holy  Roman 
See." 

Presently  it  became  rumoured  that  the 
fond  hopes  of  the  Queen  to  give  an  heir  to 
the  tnrone  were  a  delusion,  and  then  Mary, 
hoping  to  obtain  the  favour  of  God  by 
stamping  out  heresy,  took  steps  to  commence 
a  thorough  crusade  against  those  who  de- 
clared that  they  could  not  beUeve  that  water 
and  flour  could  become  God.  Men  and 
women  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  were  tried, 
condemned,  and  burnt  ;    and  as  the  people 

41 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

witnessed  the  terrible  scenes  which  took 
place,  they  began  to  ask  themselves  whether 
they  who  died  so  joyfully  and  so  full  of 
faith  could  indeed  be  heretics,  and  whether 
the  Church  in  whose  name  they  were  roasted 
to  death  could  indeed  express  the  mind  of 
Him  who  wept  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus  and 
whose  love  led  Him  to  die  for  the  world. 

Presently  it  was  whispered  abroad  that 
for  every  martyr  burnt  there  were  twenty 
thousand  who  left  the  Roman  Church  and 
embraced  the  Protestant  faith. 

"  These  Protestants  might  not  know  how 
to  govern  wisely,"  says  Green,  "  but  they 
knew  how  to  die." 

This  was  true,  and  the  story  of  those  who 
suffered  unnameable  horrors,  rather  than  be 
untrue  to  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures  and 
the  promptings  of  God  in  their  souls,  is 
among  the  most  soul-moving  and  the  most 
pathetic   in  history. 

England  became  a  land  of  wailing.  Men 
and  women  went  around  with  haunting  fear 
in  their  hearts  lest  any  chance  word  they  had 
spoken  should  bring  them  before  the  judges. 
A  great  black  terror  rested  upon  the  nation. 
No  man  was  safe.     If  an  evil-minded  person 

42 


Why  England  became  Protestant 

had  a  grudge  against  some  one,  he  accused 
that  person  of  heresy,  and  thus  wreaked  his 
vengeance.  Thousands  were  afraid  to  utter 
the  most  innocent  thoughts  for  fear  of  being 
suspected. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  however,  the  New 
Testament  was  being  read  and  discussed. 
People  met  in  secret  and  conversed  on  the 
deep  things  of  life  ;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
almost  daily  burnings,  what  was  called 
heresy  spread  from  town  to  town,  from 
village  to  village,  and  hamlet  to  hamlet. 
The  fires  of  persecution  led  the  inhabitants 
of  our  land  from  mere  formal  things  to 
realities.  The  seeds  of  liberty  and  truth 
which  had  been  sown  years  before  had 
sprung  up,  and  instead  of  persecution 
destroying  the  fruits   it  nourished   them. 

Mary  might  persist,  as  she  and  many 
others  did,  in  believing  that  it  was  for 
the  good  of  the  Church  to  burn 
those  who  could  not  believe  in  the 
Mass,  but  what  she  called  heresy  spread 
rapidly.  "  Bloody  Bonner  "  might  incite  her 
to  deeds  of  the  most  terrible  nature,  but 
he  could  not  stamp  out  the  truth.  What 
was    true    of    Holland    was    also    true    of 

43 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

England— edicts  and  bloodshed  and  the 
flames  of  the  faggots  drove  the  people  to 
God.  Thus  the  deeds  which  the  Roman 
Church  blessed,  and  at  which  the  children  of 
England  have  shuddered  for  three  hundred 
years,  helped  the  nation  to  see  that  Rome 
was  the  enemy  of  freedom,  the  power  that 
was  as  cruel  as  death. 

Perhaps  the  event  which  helped  on  this 
belief  more  than  any  other  was  the  martyr- 
dom of  Ridley  and  Latimer,  near  Balliol 
College,  in  Oxford.  That  these  two  old 
men,  known  and  loved  everywhere  for  their 
learning,  their  good  works,  and  their  piety, 
should  suffer  the  most  cruel  of  deaths,  under 
the  tyranny  of  the  Roman  Church,  caused  a 
shudder  of  revolt  throughout  the  land. 

"  The  Church  guilty  of  this,"  said  the 
people,  "  cannot  be  the  Church  of  Jesus." 
And  in  spite  of  edicts,  in  spite  of  fire  and 
torments,  they  read  the  New  Testaments 
which  yet  remained  to  them. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  nation  which 
had  accepted  the  Roman  faith  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Mary's  reign  was  largely  Protestant 
when  that  reign  drew  to  an  end — Pro- 
testant, not  because  of  votes  in  Parliament, 

44 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

but  because  it  had  been  led  to  embrace  Jesus 
Christ  as  Saviour. 

The  death  of  Mary  was  the  cause  of 
rejoicing  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the 
other,  and  Elizabeth  was  proclaimed  Queen 
amidst  universal  joy.  The  reign  of 
terrorism — the  reign  of  the  Pope — had  come 
to  an  end,  and  the  dawn  of  a  new  day 
appeared.  Not  that  Elizabeth  was  a  Pro- 
testant, in  the  true  sense  of  the  word ; 
neither  did  she  love  Protestants,  but  she  was 
not  a  bigot,  like  Mary  ;  neither  would  she 
allow  herself  to  be  dictated  to  by  Rome. 
Moreover,  she  could  not  help  seeing  that 
a  large  part  of  the  nation  had  accepted 
Protestantism,  and  she  had  to  act  accord- 
ingly. 

On  the  settlement  of  religious  matters 
under  Elizabeth's  reign  there  is  little  need 
to  enlarge.  As  all  the  world  knows,  it  was 
in  the  nature  of  a  compromise.  The  Queen 
was  anxious  to  conciliate  the  Protestants  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Catholics  on  the  other, 
under  a  system  that  was  to  be  called  the 
National  Church,  and  to  a  certain  extent  she 
succeeded.  But  compromises  are  dangerous 
things,  as  subsequent  history  shows.    Never- 

45 


r 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

theless,  with  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish 
Armada  the  overthrow  of  the  Papacy  in 
England  for  nearly  a  century  was  com- 
plete. 

Only  a  few  words  dealing  with  subsequent 
history  are  needed.  After  Elizabeth  came 
James  I.,  a  man  who,  Macaulay  says,  "  united 
in  his  own  character  pedantry,  buffoonery, 
low  curiosity,  and  the  most  contemptible  per- 
sonal cowardice — one  of  those  kings  whom 
God  seems  to  send  for  the  purpose  of  hasten- 
ing revolutions."  But  there  is  one  thing  for 
which  James's  reign  is  noted.  It  gave  us 
our  Bible,  and  that  Bible  became  the  one 
book  of  the  Puritans,  and,  under  God,  one 
of  the  greatest  factors  in  forming  the  nation's 
life. 

During  the  reign  of  Charles  I .,  under  Arch- 
bishop Laud,  the  chains  of  slavery  were  again 
forged.  The  iniquitous  "  Star  Chamber  " 
threatened  the  people's  liberties,  and  the 
days  of  Mary  came  back  again  in  a  milder 
form.  Then  came  the  Commonwealth  and 
the  Puritanism  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  It  was 
then  that  our  country  rose  to  the  zenith  of 
its  power ;  but  with  the  death  of  Cromwell 
came  two  Catholic  kings,  during  whose  reign 

46 


Why  England  became   Protestant 

the  country  began  to  drift  back  to  its  old 
terrorism.  Especially  was  this  true  during 
the  time  of  James  II.,  when  Britain  was 
a  kind  of  paid  vassal  of  Louis  XIV.  of 
France.  But  this  did  not  long  continue. 
The  people  who  had  inherited  their  Pro- 
testant liberties,  and  determined  to  maintain 
them,  much  as  they  hated  revolt,  at  length 
determined  to  be  free  from  the  dominion 
of  a  king  who  was  false  to  his  Coronation 
oaths  and  an  enemy  to  the  best  life  of  the 
nation.  Thus  it  came  about  that,  in  spite  of 
the  terrible  failure  of  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth's rebellion  and  the  bloody  deeds 
which  followed,  William  of  Orange  was 
asked  to  become  the  king  of  these  realms. 
The  story  of  his  coming  is  well  known.  No 
battle  was  fought,  for  James  II.  had  escaped 
like  a  thief  in  the  night,  and  the  Dutchman 
became  king  almost  without  a  word  of 
dissent.  William  promised  to  maintain  the 
Protestant  Constitution  of  the  land,  and  the 
people  rejoiced .  The  threatened  Popery  of  the 
last  few  years  had  made  England  determine 
that  never  again  should  a  Catholic  king  sit 
on  England's  throne.  The  shadow  of  the 
Papal  power  had  rested  on  them  for  years, 

47 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

and  it  was  so  terrible  that  the  nation  resolved 
that  never  again  v^^ould  it  have  the  reality. 

Thus  England  became  Protestant.  It 
threw  off  the  Papal  chains  ;  and  from  that 
time  up  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury no  one,  in  his  wildest  dreams,  ever 
imagined  that  the  hand  of  Rome  would  ever 
be  laid  in  power  on  England  again. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  tell  of  the  part 
played  by  what  is  called  Dissent  in  the  Pro- 
testantising of  the  country.  It  ought  to  be 
told,  for  it  was  the  life-blood  of  the  move- 
ment. All  through  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts 
it  was  the  rock  against  which  the  barque 
of  Rome  dashed  itself  in  vain  ;  and  to  this 
day  it  is  admitted  that  the  Free  Churches 
are  the  great  bulwark  against  the  invasion 
of  Rome. 

Neither  is  there  any  need  to  tell  the  story 
of  Scotland  and  her  heroes.  The  memory 
of  John  Knox,  and  the  Covenanters  who 
signed  the  charter  of  liberty  with  their  blood, 
lives  to-day  in  those  domains  north  of  the 
Tweed.  Their  battle  was  the  same  as  ours, 
but  fought  in  a  different  way ;  and  in  no 
part  of  these  fair  islands  is  the  determination 
never  again  to  allow  the  yoke  of  Rome  to 

48 


Why   England  became   Protestant 

be  placed  upon  the  people  as  strong  as  in 
that  land  where  the  Reformation  was  not 
a  compromise  but  a  reality. 

In  this  sketch  I  have  tried  to  suggest  the 
great  battle  that  was  fought.  It  was  no 
light  matter  ;  it  went  down  to  the  very  roots 
of  life.  It  was  a  battle  for  a  free  and  open 
Bible  ;  it  was  a  battle  for  liberty — liberty 
of  mind  and  liberty  of  soul.  That  battle 
was  won  by  those  who  were  willing  to  sacri- 
fice their  lives,  but  who  would  never  sacrifice 
liberty  and  truth  ;  and,  because  they  won 
the  battle,  much  of  the  lies,  the  corruption, 
the  slavery  against  which  they  strove,  have 
been  swept  away  from  our  island  home. 

Shall  Rome  ever  come  back  to  reign? 
That  is  the  question  to  be  considered  in 
this  volume. 


49  B 


CHAPTER    11 

WHY    ROMANISM   RUINS    A    COUNTRY 

We  have  before  us  a  curious  problem.  It 
is  not  disputed  that  our  Western  civilisation 
is  the  product  of  Christianity,  and  our 
Western  civilisation  is  the  model  and  the 
teacher  of  the  world.  Progress,  in  any 
worthy  sense  of  the  word,  is  closely  identified 
with  the  Christian  religion. 

But  the  largest  and  oldest  Church  of 
Christendom,  the  Papal  Church,  exercises  on 
every  country  in  which  it  is  predominant  an 
extraordinary  blight.  Once  the  Papal  coun- 
tries were  in  the  van  of  Christendom  ;  now 
they  are  in  the  rear.  There  is  no  longer  a 
first-class  Power  in  Europe  which  renders 
obedience  to  the  Papacy.  France,  the  eldest 
daughter  of  the  Church,  has  thrown  off  her 
allegiance.  Italy,  as  a  kingdom,  repudiates 
the  Papal  authority,  though  as  a  country  she 
still  harbours  the  Papal  Court. 

50 


Why   Romanism    Ruins   a   Country 

The  only  two  countries  in  Europe  which 
have  never  broken  away  from  the  Papacy, 
but  have  voluntarily  submitted  to  the  yoke, 
are  Spain  and  Belgium.  Austria  cannot  be 
included,  for  parts  of  that  complex  empire 
have  been  in  the  past,  and  still  are,  the 
theatre  of  vigorous  Protestant  movements. 
Belgium  is  the  brightest  gem  in  the  Papal 
crown.  It  is  prosperous  commercially,  and 
it  is  devoutly  Catholic,  except  so  far  as  it 
is  infidel  and  socialistic.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  this  genuinely  Catholic  State  should  be 
responsible  for  the  Congo  and  for  what  is 
rightly  called  "  the  greatest  crime  in 
history." 

Spain  is  the  other  Catholic  Power  in 
Europe.  Once  she  was  the  admitted  leader 
of  Christendom,  and  the  conqueror  of  the 
New  World.  To-day,  notwithstanding  her 
size,  she  hardly  counts  in  the  councils  of 
Europe,  while  Spanish  America,  the  most 
completely  Catholic  part  of  the  world  out- 
side Europe,  is  incapable  of  political  stability 
or  of  moral  progress.  The  contrast  between 
the  northern  part  of  that  continent,  which 
was  colonised  by  Puritan  England,  and  the 
southern    part,    which    was    conquered    and 

51 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

settled  by  Catholic  Spain,  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  object-lessons  in  the  world,  and 
illustrates  the  paradox  that  while  Christen- 
dom is  the  leader  of  the  world's  progress, 
within  the  borders  of  Christendom  Catholi- 
cism is  retrogressive  and  retards. 

Thus  the  broad  fact,  whatever  may  be  the 
explanation  of  it,  is  too  plain  to  escape  the 
notice  of  any  candid  inquirer.  There  is  in 
Romanism  some  subtle  and  irresistible  ten- 
dency to  retard,  and  even  to  ruin,  every 
country  which  it  dominates. 

iVVhat  emphasises  the  paradox  is  that  the 
Roman  Church  always  retains  an  extra- 
ordinary hold  over  the  people.  It  builds 
and  maintains  great  churches,  colleges, 
monasteries.  It  carries  on  its  stately  and 
often  beautiful  ceremonial.  Its  altars  are 
thronged ;  its  adherents  are  taught  and 
shepherded  and  completely  under  control. 

In  this  respect  Romanism  is  like  Moham- 
medanism or  Hinduism — it  really  grips 
people  and  nations.  The  Roman  Church 
dominates  Ireland  and  the  Irish,  as  com- 
pletely as  Islam  dominates  Morocco.  Ire- 
land, with  the  exception  of  Ulster,  is  the 
Island  of  the  Saints,  and  exhibits  more  per- 

52 


Why   Romanism    Ruins   a   Country 

fectly  than  any  other  part  of  Europe  the 
virtue  and  value  of  the  Papal  religion.  There 
the  Catholic  ideals  are  realised.  There, 
under  our  indulgent  government,  Catholi- 
cism enjoys  a  liberty  and  a  power  such  as 
it  enjoys  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  The 
traveller  in  Ireland  sees  everywhere  the  fine 
and  costly  churches  and  the  comfortable 
presbyteries  rising  among  the  hovels  of  the 
people.  Every  hillside  has  its  memorials  of 
saints.  The  priests  control  not  only  the  wor- 
ship but  the  life  of  the  people.  They  have 
it  all  their  own  way.  If  the  Irish  peasant 
desires  freedom,  he  emigrates  to  America. 
I  am  told  that  not  only  peasants  but  even 
priests  frequently  cross  the  Atlantic,  not  for 
economic  or  worldly  reasons  at  all,  but  to 
escape  from  the  rigid  and  perfected  system 
of  the  Roman  obedience,  which  is,  as 
Catholics  think,  the  supreme  blessing,  and, 
as  Protestants  think,  the  most  crushing  bane, 
of  that  lovely  and  melancholy  land. 

The  ruinous  effect  of  Romanism  on  a 
country  is  plain.  But  when  we  come  to 
inquire  the  reason  of  it  there  is  room  for 
much  variety  of  opinion.  I  suggest  four 
things    which,    taken    singly,   might   explain 

53 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

the  result,  but,  taken  together,  leave  us  with- 
out   astonishment,    that    where   the    Papacy 
prevails  nations  wither  and  decay. 
These  four  things  are  : 

1.  The   sacerdotal  system  of  Rome. 

2.  The  intellectual  bondage,  and  the  con- 
sequent growth  of  superstitionj  which  the 
system  demands. 

3.  The  subtle  effect  of  the  system  on  the 
teaching  and  practice  of  truth. 

4.  The  position  claimed  by,  and  conceded 
to,  the  Pope. 

I  will  endeavour  to  show  how  any  one  of 
these  causes  would  account  for  the  kind  of 
degeneration  and  retrogression  which  is 
observable   in   Catholic   communities. 

I.  The  Sacerdotal  System. — In  the  first 
place,  the  Catholic  priest  is  a  celibate  under 
compulsion  ;  in  the  second  place,  he  claims 
to  discharge  functions  which  invest  him  with 
a  superhuman  dignity  and  authority ;  in  the 
third  place,  he  exercises  in  the  confessional 
a  power  over  his  fellow-men  by  methods 
which  are  equally  demoralising  to  him  and 
to  them. 

Now,  it  may  seem  startling  to  connect 
the  decay  of  Catholic  countries  with  the  celi- 

54 


I 


Why    Romanism    Ruins    a    Country 

bacy  of  the  priesthood.  But  here  is  a  plain 
fact :  In  our  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
graphy, the  larger  Westminster  Abbey,  in 
which  are  recorded  the  lives  of  all  who  have 
served  and  made  their  country,  the  propor- 
tion of  the  "  sons  of  the  manse  "  is  almost 
incredible.  The  clergy  and  ministers  are 
a  small  part  of  our  population,  but  they  con- 
tribute,  I  think  it  is,  more  than  a  third 
of  the  great  men  and  women  of  our  English 
race. 

The  simple  life,  filled  with  spiritual  ideals, 
ordered  and  disciplined  by  the  duties  of  the 
pastor,  the  life  of  the  rectory  or  of  the  manse, 
is,  speaking  broadly,  the  best  training  we 
have  in  England  for  boys  and  girls  who  are 
to  serve  their  country  well.  If  our  clergy 
had  been  celibate  for  these  four  centuries 
of  the  Reformation,  England  would  have  lost 
at  least  a  third  of  her  greatest  and  noblest 
sons.  There  would  have  been  no  Nelson  ; 
there  would  have  been  no  Tennyson  ;  there 
would  have  been  no  Matthew  Arnold.  The 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  would 
shrink  to  two-lhirds  of  its  present 
dimensions. 

The  Dictionary  of  Spanish  Biography,  if 

55 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

there  is  one,  must  be  proportionately  re- 
duced. By  the  ceUbacy  of  the  priesthood, 
and  by  the  conventual  system,  in  which 
Rome  places  the  highest  expression  of  her 
religion,  the  best  and  noblest  persons  of  the 
community  are  sterilised  ;  they  can  give  no 
legitimate  children  to  their  country.  A 
Catholic  community  is  thereby  deprived  of 
one  of  the  wholesomest,  most  intellectual, 
and  most  strenuous  elements  of  population. 
And  when  this  sterilising  process  is  carried 
on  for  some  generations ,  the  Roman  Catholic 
country  falls  far  behind  a  country  in  which 
thousands  of  vicarages  and  manses  are  train- 
ing up  children  in  the  best  of  all  discipline— 
"  plain  living  and  high  thinking." 

But  the  Catholic  priest  is  led  co  claim 
a  character  and  to  exercise  functions  which 
raise  him  out  of  the  category  of  humanity. 
At  the  altar  he  changes  bread  and  wine  into 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  and  offers 
them  as  the  sacrifice  for  sin,  the  food  of  the 
soul,  God  manifested  in  the  flesh  ;  so  that, 
in  the  expressive  language  of  St.  Alfonso  de 
Liguori,  the  priest  is  the  CREATOR  OF  HIS 
Creator.  Furthermore,  he  is  taught  to  be- 
believe  that  he  can  forgive  or  retain  sins. 

56 


Why    Romanism    Ruins    a    Country 

•He  thus  holds  the  keys  of  heaven  for  his 
fellow-men,  and  can  admit  or  exclude  whom 
he  will. 

Naturally,  before  one  claiming  such 
powers  those  who  believe  in  them  bow 
down  prostrate  and  obedient.  God  Himself 
could  hardly  do  more  than  the  priest  pro- 
fesses to  do.  And  therefore  the  devout 
Catholic  submits  to  his  priest  as  he  would 
to  God.  He  believes  what  his  priest  tells 
him,  he  does  what  his  priest  requires  ;  he 
disposes  of  his  property  at  the  bidding  of 
the  priests,  so  that  in  England  before  the 
Reformation  a  third  of  the  land  had  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  priests.  He  cannot 
call  his  soul  his  own — it  is  the  priest's  ;  he 
cannot  come  to  God,  or  receive  the  grace 
of  God,  but  by  the  priest.  Individuality, 
independence,  manliness  declines.  The 
Catholic  is  held  under  the  most  subtle,  the 
most  absolute  domination  of  a  fellow-mortal. 
He  is  like  one  hypnotised. 

If  priests  were  the  best  and  holiest  of 
men,  this  would  still  be  injurious  to  char- 
acter. We  must  learn  by  independence.  To 
possess  our  own  souls,  and  to  come  straight 
to  God  without  any  intermediary,  is  the  con- 

57 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

dition  of  moral  and  spiritual  development. 
A  population,  therefore,  under  the  domina- 
tion of  the  best  priests  in  the  world  would 
still  be  only  children,  utterly  unable  to  make 
real  progress  in  moral  life  and  in  spiritual 
knowledge.  Such  a  population  would 
always  be  in  swaddling-clothes,  and  would 
fall  behind  the  manly  races  which  make 
progressive   countries. 

But  the  priests  are  not,  as  a  whole,  the 
best  and  holiest  of  men.  A  Frenchman, 
who  had  been  a  priest,  told  me  that 
in  France  it  is  known  that  a  third 
of  the  priests  are  real  believers,  con- 
scientious pastors,  and  morally  good  ;  that 
another  third  are  sceptics,  not  believing  the 
rites  or  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  to  which 
they  are  bound ;  and  another  third  are 
immoral  and  often  scandalous. 

But  good  Catholics  are  equally  subject 
to  the  priest  whether  he  be  good,  bad,  or 
unbelieving  ;  and  a  Catholic  population  is 
under  a  domination  which,  at  its  best 
dwarfing,  not  infrequently  becomes  vicious 
and  corrupting. 

The  corruption  of  the  priesthood  is  in- 
evitable iu  the  Catholic  system.     Priests,  as 

58 


Why   Romanism   Ruins   a   Country 

a  rule,  are  only  obtained  by  training  boys 
in  the  seminaries  and  committing  them  to 
the  vocation  before  they  have  a  chance  of 
knowing  whether  they  are  called  to  it. 
Many,  therefore,  must  necessarily  be  uncon- 
vinced and  heartless  in  their  work.  But 
priests  who  are  to  sit  in  the  confessional 
are  subjected  to  such  a  training  in  the  depths 
and  vagaries  of  iniquity  that  none  but  the 
most  exalted  minds  can  come  through  un- 
contaminated. 

•When  '*  The  Priest  in  Absolution,"  the 
manual  used  by  confessors,  was  brought  by 
Lord  Redesdale  to  the  attention  of  the  House 
of  Lords,  he  declared  that  no  one  could  read 
it  without  injury  to  his  moral  nature.  Every 
priest  who  receives  confessions  must  study 
books  of  this  kind.  And  the  demoralisation 
spreads  through  the  mind  of  the  priest  and 
the  community  to  which  he  ministers.  The 
confessional  alone,  especially  when  we  take 
into  account  the  demoralising  effect  of  pur- 
chasing absolution  by  money  payments,  is 
quite  enough  to  account  for  the  decay  of 
Catholic  countries. 

The  moral  nature  is  easily  benumbed  or 
perverted.     To  sin,  to  pay  the  penance,  and 

59 


Shall   Rome    Reconquer  England 

then  to  sin  again,  and  to  pass  one's  life  in 
that  kind  of  traffic  with  evil,  deadens  the 
moral  sense.  When  God  absolves,  He 
breaks  the  power  of  sin,  and  the  p>enitent 
in  His  confessional  means  by  his  penance 
"  heart  sorrow  and  a  clean  life  ensuing." 
The  priestly  confessional  hides  this  truth 
from  a  Catholic  population. 

2.  The  Intellectual  Bondage  and  the 
Growth  of  Superstition. — A  system  like 
Romanism  depends  entirely  on  the  ignor- 
ance and  subjection  of  the  people.  Of 
the  180,000,000  of  Catholics,  120,000,000 
are  illiterate.'  In  thoroughly  Catholic 
countries  like  Spain  and  Portugal  three- 
fourths  of  the  people  cannot  read. 

If  the  people  can  read,  they  may  read  the 
New  Testament,  or  they  may  read  the  criti- 
cisms of  the  Church  which  are  made  wher- 
ever thought  is  free.  Therefore  Catholicism, 
by  choice,  leaves  the  people  in  ignorance. 
Furthermore,  it  denies  the  right  of  private 
judgment.  The  recent  treatment  of  the 
Modernists  in  the  Encyclical  "  Pascendi 
Gregis  "  of  1907  illustrates  the  essential 
principle  of  Rome.     Modernists  like  George 

'  See  McCabe's  "  Decay  of  the  Roman  Church." 

60 


Why    Romanism   Ruins   a   Country 

Tyrrell,  pure  seekers  after  truth,  whose  one 
demand  is  that  the  Church,  if  she  is  to  teach 
truth,  must  be  truthful,  are  ruthlessly  ex-r 
pelled  from  their  posts  as  teachers.  No 
teacher  is  tolerated  in  any  Roman  school  or 
seminary  who  insists  on  seeking  and  uttering 
the  truth.  He  may  only  utter  what  the 
Church  says  is  truth.  If  the  Church  declares 
the  realism  of  the  scholastics  to  be  the 
truth,  the  Catholic  must  believe  it.  Phil- 
osophy must  end  with  Thomas  Aquinas.  If 
Catholicism  could  have  had  its  wa,y,  we 
should  still  believe  that  the  Ptolemaic  system 
of  the  heavens  was  correct,  and  that  the  sun 
moves  round  the  earth. 

As  the  Church  shuts  her  children  off  from 
full  inquiry  and  untrammelled  knowledge 
she  fills  their  minds  with  superstitions — that 
is  to  say,  with  fictions  which  she  can  control, 
because  they  arc  her  own  creation.  For 
example,  she  puts  Mariolatry  in  the  fore- 
front because  Mary  is  her  own  creation.  The 
fiction  of  her  assumption  to  heaven,  her 
coronation  by  God  and  the  Son,  and,  since 
1854,  of  her  immaculate  conception,  is  so 
entirely  the  creation  of  the  Church,  without 
any  authority  in  Scripture  or  in  the  earliest 

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Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

writers  of  the  Church,  that  every  one  who 
worships  Mary  worships  still  more  the  Papal 
Church  which  created  Mary. 

When  we  take  the  Lord's  Supper  we 
depend  on  the  New  Testament  as  our 
authority.  But  Catholicism  is  not  content 
with  this.  The  Supper  must  be  transformed 
into  a  Catholic  creation,  totally  disconnected 
from  the  New  Testament.  Thus  Cornelius 
k  Lapide  says  :  "  For  as  often  as  we  eat 
the  flesh  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist,  so  often 
do  we  in  it  really  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin.  ...  As  then  we  daily  hunger  after 
the  flesh  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist,  so  too 
we  hunger  for  that  same  flesh  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  that  we  may  drink  her  virgin  endow- 
ments and  ways,  and  incorporate  them  in 
ourselves.  And  this  do  not  only  priests 
and  religious,  but  all  Christians ;  for  the 
Blessed  Virgin  feeds  all  with  her  own  flesh 
equally  with  the  flesh  of  Christ  in  the 
Eucharist  "  (on  Ecclus.  xxiv.  29).  The 
late  Pope  Leo  XI IL,  in  his  Encyclical  of 
September,  1891,  stated  :  "  As  no  man  goeth 
to  the  Father  but  by  the  Son,  so  scarce  any 
man   goeth   to   Christ   but   by  his   Mother  " 

(•'  Marian itry,"  Expository  Times,  xxi.  133). 

62 


Why   Romanism    Ruins    a   Country 

This  whole  gigantic  cult  of  Mary  is  imposed 
on  Catholics  without  any  evidence  by  the 
absolute  command  of  the  Church.  The 
object  of  it  is  to  fetter  the  intelligence  of 
believers  and  to  force  them  into  dependence 
on  the  authority  which  thus  creates  their 
objects  of  worship. 

The  Papacy  and  Mariolatry  are  insepar- 
able. But  a  population  which  directs  its 
devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  is  brought 
into  a  peculiar  bondage.  And  as  Peter 
Rosegger  says,  one  reason  for  the  popu- 
larity of  the  Mary  cult  is  that,  while 
Christ  is  Judge  as  well  as  Saviour, 
Mary  is  human  and  indulgent  to  human 
infirmities.  Mariolatry,  therefore,  brings 
with  it  a  demoralising  subjection  of 
the  mind  and  a  weakening  of  the  moral 
fibre.  Let  the  reader  look  at  Peter 
Roseggcr's  account  of  Mary  worship  among 
the  pious  Bavarian  peasants  in  his  book 
"  Mcin  Himmclreich,"  and  very  little  diffi- 
culty will  be  found  in  seeing  how  the 
whole  superstition  weakens  and  injures  not 
only  the  religious  sense,  but  intellectual 
integrity. 

3.   The    Effect    of    the    System    on    the 

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Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Teaching  and  Practice  of  Truth. — The 
Papal  system  was  built  up  on  the  False 
Decretals  of  Isidore — a  collection  of  eccle- 
siastical canons,  purporting  to  come  from 
the  earliest  times,  forged  at  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century.  "  Upon  these  spurious  De- 
cretals," says  Hallam  ("  Middle  Ages," 
vol.  ii.  p.  167),  "was  built  the  great 
fabric  of  papal  supremacy  over  the  different 
national  Churches,  a  fabric  which  has  stood 
after  its  foundations  crumbled  beneath  it ; 
for  no  one  has  pretended  to  deny  for  the 
last  two  centuries  that  the  imposture  is  too 
palpable  for  any  but  the  most  ignorant  ages 
to  credit"  {cf.  Professor  Bartoli,  Expository 
Times,  xxii.  129).  Whether  this  building  on 
forgeries  has  introduced  the  false  element 
into  the  Church  of  Rome  cannot  be  decided. 
Probably  a  more  operative  cause  has  been 
the  casuistry  wTiich  was  demanded  by  the 
work  of  the  confessional.  The  priest  might 
declare,  and  even  swear  with  an  oath,  that 
he  did  not  know  what  he  had  learned  in 
the  confessional  because  he  knew  it  ut  Deus 
(as  God),  but  spoke  among  men  ut  hornet. 
(as  man).  Thus,  a  priest  was  always  at 
liberty  to  tell  a  falsehood  for  this  purpose. 

64 


Why    Romanism    Ruins   a   Country 

Probably  from  this  grew  up  the  doctrine  of 
reserve,  which  Pascal  so  pitilessly  exposed, 
a  doctrine  which  retains  its  place  in  all  books 
of  moral  theology  written  by  Catholics. 
There  are,  according  to  this  teaching, 
circumstances  in  which  we  are  at  liberty  to 
withhold  the  truth.  And  as  William  George 
Ward,  that  most  ardent  and  logical  of 
Catholic  converts,  put  it :  "  Make  yourself 
clear  that  you  are  justified  in  deception  and 
then  lie  like  a  trooper." 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  de- 
moralisation introduced  into  Catholic  coun- 
tries by  this  fatal  doctrine.  If  there  are 
cases  in  which  we  are  at  liberty  to  lie,  our 
lips  lie,  and  lose  their  virginal  purity.  When 
once  we  have  lied  in  a  good  cause  we  shall 
have  little  difficulty  in  persuading  ourselves 
that  whenever  a  lie  would  be  useful  the 
cause   is  good. 

Benjamin  Jowett,  on  hearing  tlie  Catholic 
plea  that  there  were  cases  in  which  he  must 
lie,  said  :  "If  that  be  so,  I  should  like  to 
think  as  little  as  possible  of  it  beforehand, 
and  remember  it  as  little  as  possible  after." 

But  Catholic  casuistry  has  thought  as 
much  as  possible  of  it  beforehand,  and  has 

65  F 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

thus  stained  the  pure  idea  of  truth,  with  this 
disastrous    consequence,    that    in    Catholic 
countries  the  standard  of  truth  is  different, 
and   as    soon   as    people   turn   towards   the 
Roman  Church,  though  they  may  have  been 
truthful   as   Ward,   they   quickly  accept  the 
changed  standard.     And  as  truth-speaking 
and  trustworthiness  are  the  very  foundation 
of  character  and  of  wellbeing  in  this  world, 
it  is  likely  enough  that  this  derogation  from 
the  absoluteness  of  truth,  demanded  appa- 
rently by  the  history  and  claims  of  the  Papal 
Church,   largely   explains   the   blight   which 
falls  upon  Catholic  populations. 

4.  The  Position  Claimed  by  and  Con- 
ceded to  the  Pope —He  is  the  Vicegerent 
of  God,  and  as  such  he  is  removed  out  of 
the  category  of  humanity.  His  place  is  not 
at  the  altar,  but  on  the  aUar.  His  utter- 
ances ex  cathedra  are  regarded  as  the  actual 
decisions  of  God,  infallible  and  final. 

In  the  "  Corpus  Juris  Canonici  "  he  is 
called  "  our  Lord  God  the  Pope."  Cathohc 
apologists  in  England  assert  that  the  title 
is  due  to  a  slip  of  the  pen  ;  the  writer  in- 
tending to  say  "  Our  Lord  the  Pope  "  slipped 
in  the  word  "  God."     But  the  slip  was  quite 

66 


Why   Romanism    Ruins   a   Country 

logical.  And  since  1870  and  the  declara- 
tion of  infallibility  it  must  be  fully  admitted 
that  the  Pope,  speaking  ex  cathedra,  is  the 
exact  equivalent  of  God,  and  Catholics  are 
bound  to  pay  him  the  same  reverence  as 
they  pay  to  God. 

Here  is  a  tract,  "  De  la  Devotion  au 
Pape,"  by  Arsene  Pierre  Milet,  dedicated  to 
Pius  X.,  published  by  Paul  Salmon,  of 
Tours,  1904.  Quoting  the  words  of 
Mark  xii.  30,  "  Thou  shalt  love  God  with 
all  thy  mind,  with  all  thy  will,  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  strength,"  the  writer 
says  :  "  Since  the  Pope  represents  God  on 
earth,  we  ought  to  love  him,  although  in 
a  subordinate  degree,  as  God  Himself,  our 
Father  who  is  in  heaven,  with  all  our  mind, 
and  all  our  will,  and  all  our  heart,  and  all 
our  strength.  For  except  the  mystery  of 
the  real  Presence,  nothing  makes  us  feel 
so  well  or  touch  so  closely  the  presence  of 
God,  as  docs  the  sight  or  even  tlie  thought 
of  the  Vicar  of  Christ.  He  is  the  Father 
of  all  Humanity,  the  Father  of  the  simple 
faithful,  as  also  of  the  priests  and  bishops 
themselves.  Although  there  is  not  an  abso- 
lute parity,   yet  in  a  certain  sense  we  may 

67 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

say  that  as  the  Tabernacle  is  the  home  of 
Jesus  the  Victim  so  the  Palace  of  the  Vatican 
at  Rome  is  the  home  of  Jesus  the  Teacher  ; 
that  it  is  from  this  Palace,  or  rather 
Sanctuary,  that  since  His  Ascension  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Divine  Word,  speaks 
to  the  world  by  the  mouth  of  His  Vicar, 
whether  he  be  called  Peter,  or  Leo  XHL, 
or  Pius  X.  .  .  .  When  we  fall  at  the  Pope's 
feet  to  offer  him  the  homage  of  our  mind, 
and  to  accept  his  teachings,  it  is  in  a  certain 
way  Jesus  Christ  whom  we  adore  in  His 
doctrinal  Presence.  Whence  it  follows  by 
rigorous  consequence  that  it  is  as  impossible 
to  be  a  good  Christian  without  devotion  to 
the  Pope  as  without  devotion  to  the 
Eucharist.  If  therefore  we  truly  love  the 
Pope,  nothing  will  be  dearer  to  us  than 
the  Pope's  will ;  and  even  when  obedience 
to  the  Pope  means  sacrifices  we  shall  never 
hesitate  to  follow  any  direction  whatsoever 
emanating  from  Rome.  Every  objection 
will  be  silenced,  every  reasoning  will  go  for 
nothing,  every  hesitation  will  yield  before 
this  unanswerable  argument :  '  God  wills 
and  commands  it  because  the  Pope  wills 
and  commands  it.'     Let  us  enter  into  the 

68 


Why   Romanism   Ruins   a   Country 

joys  of  the  Pope ;  let  us  rejoice  in  his 
success  and  glory  in  his  triumphs,  but  let 
us  also  share  his  anguish.  .  .  .  By  the  mere 
fact  that  he  is  the  Vicar  of  Christ  and  His 
principal  co -operant,  he  is  an  elect  Victim 
and  is  ex  officio  nailed  to  the  Cross.  Pope 
and  Victim  are  two  inseparable  qualities." 

The  tract  ends  with  a  quotation  from 
Mgr.  Gay:  "All  the  devotion  to  Jesus 
as  Priest,  Shepherd,  and  Father  that 
enlightened  faith  can  inspire  is  summed 
up  practically  and  effectively  in  devotion  to 
the  Pope.  If  one  is  devout  to  the  angels, 
the  Pope  is  the  visible  Angel  of  the  whole 
Church.  If  we  are  devout  to  the  saints, 
the  Pope  is  on  earth  the  source  of  sanctity 
and  is  called  his  Holiness.  If  you  should 
have  a  devotion  to  the  sacred  Scriptures, 
the  Pope  is  the  living  and  speaking  Bible. 
If  it  is  a  duty  to  be  devout  to  the  Sacra- 
ments, is  not  the  Pope  the  Sacrament  of 
Jesus  by  the  mere  fact  that  he  is  His 
Vicar?" 

But  perhaps  this  Lamaism,  as  George 
Tyrrell  called  it,  is  distasteful  to,  and  re- 
pudiated by,  the  Pope  himself.  On  the 
contrary,  Cardinal  Merry  del  Val  writes  to 

69 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

the  author  expressing  the  Pope's  satisfac- 
tion with  the  tract  as  a  work  of  intelligent 
piety  "  worthy  of  a  devout  priest." 

This  is  not  the  Romanism  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  but  the  Romanism  of  the  present  Pope 
in  the  twentieth  century. 

The  deification  of  the  Pope  is  authorised 
by  the  Pope  himself.  The  Pope's  prede- 
cessor as  Pontifex  Maximus,  the  Emperor 
Vespasian,  said  grimly,  as  he  died,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  adulation  which  deified  deceased 
emperors  :  "  Deas  fio  " — "  I  am  becoming 
a  God."  The  Pope  uses  the  same  words 
while  he  lives. 

But  this  deification  of  a  man  involves 
every  country  that  accepts  it  in  degradation 
and  ruin.  It  is  "  the  falling  away  "  foretold 
in  the  beginning  (2  Thess.  ii.  3);  "the 
man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition  revealed, 
he  that  opposeth  and  exalteth  himself  against 
all  that  is  called  God,  or  that  is  worshipped ; 
so  that  he  sitteth  in  the  temple  of  God, 
setting  himself  forth  as  God." 

If  a  devout  Catholic  like  George  Tyrrell 
protests  against  the  blasphemy,  he  is  ex- 
communicated, and  refused  even  Christian 
burial.      Rome   crushes,   not   only  freedom 

70 


Why   Romanism    Ruins    a   Country 

of  thought,  but  any  refusal  to  fall  down 
and  worship  the  image  which  she  has 
set  up. 

Now,  observe  that  all  these  things  which 
sufficiently  explain  the  inevitable  decay  of 
Catholic  countries  are  no  part  of  Chris- 
tianity. They  are  the  pagan  excrescences 
which  have  grown  upon  the  living  tree  in 
the  course  of  ages,  and  are  maintained  only 
by  the  corrupt  and  interested  Government 
of  the  Vatican. 

Nothing  in  the  words  of  our  Lord  or  in 
the  writings  of  the  Apostles  authorises 
priests,  or  Mariolatry,  or  the  casuistry  of 
the  Jesuits,  or  the  claims  of  the  Pope.  The 
Reformation  recovered  Christianity  by  re- 
pudiating these  and  similar  corruptions. 
The  vital  and  progressive  powers  of  Chris- 
tianity escaped  from  Rome  and  pushed  out 
to  conquer  and  lead  the  world.  Rome  is 
irreformable.  Our  hope  as  Christians  and 
as  nations  is  to  shake  off  the  bondage  of 
her  tyranny,  her  superstition,  her  duplicity, 
and   her  blasphemy. 


71 


CHAPTER    III 

THE     DETERMINATION     OF     ROME     TO     RE-r 
CONQUER    GREAT    BRITAIN 

That  Rome  should  desire  to  recover  the 
power  which  she  had,  but  lost,  is  natural. 
No  great  hierarchy,  like  Rome,  could  sustain 
such  a  defeat  as  she  sustained  in  the  six- 
teenth century  without  desiring  to  make 
good  the  defeat  and  recover  her  influence. 
Thus,  no  sooner  did  the  Reformation  be- 
come a  power  than  a  mighty  endeavour  was 
made  to  destroy  that  power.  The  Society 
of  Jesus  was  formed,  and  became  one  of 
the  greatest  fighting  forces  in  the  Church. 
To  tell  the  story  of  that  Society,  or  place 
on  paper  the  schemes  formed  under  its  direc- 
tion and  inspired  by  its  teaching,  would  need 
many  volumes.  But  this  must  be  borne  in 
mind  :  The  advancement  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  always  the  object  aimed  at. 
Thrones     were     attacked,     kingdoms     were 

S2 


The   Determination  of   Rome 

shaken,  wars  were  waged,  always  with  this 
one  end  in  view.  The  individual  counted 
but  little  ;  the  Church  was  everything.  In 
Germany,  in  France,  in  Holland,  in  Eng-r 
land — everywhere  it  was  the  same  story. 
The  command  of  the  "  Vicegerent  of  Christ  " 
had  gone  forth,  and  heresy  must  be  stamped 
out.  Mercy,  pity,  the  commonest  laws  of 
human  kindness  were  forgotten  ;  and  the 
ghastliest  deeds  in  history  were  done  in  the 
name  of  Him  who  took  little  children  in  His 
arms  and  blessed  them. 

Time  after  time  the  Church  of  Rome 
sought  to  conquer  England,  without  success  ; 
the  bloody  deeds  of  Mary,  the  perfidy  of 
the  Stuarts  failed,  and  Protestantism  became 
more  firmly  seated  than  ever  in  our  island 
homr^ . 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  how- 
ever,  a  new  endeavour  was  commenced,  to 
do  what  past  efforts  had  failed  to  do.  Pope 
Pius  IX.  sent  Cardinal  Wiseman  and  a 
number  of  bishops  to  take  ecclesiastical 
possession   of   our   country. 

The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  Pope  and  his  advisers  saw  that  power 
was  slipping  from  their  grasp  in  nearly  every 

73 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

country  in  Europe.  Even  in  Italy  itself, 
the  home  of  the  Vatican,  both  the  liberty 
and  life  of  the  Pope  were  in  danger.  In 
1848  Pius  IX.  had  to  fly  from  his  palace 
like  a  thief  in  the  night,  and  for  nearly 
two  years  he  remained  under  the  protec- 
tion of  a  man  whose  name  was  a  byword 
in  his  own  country.  Italy  was  slipping  from 
his  grasp  ;  and  then,  with  an  audacity  which 
one  cannot  help  admiring,  he  determined  on 
the  conquest  of  the  nation  which  for  cen- 
turies had  despised  the  pretensions  of  the 
Papal  See.  If  mighty  England  could  be 
won  back,  he  could  afi"ord  to  lose  Italy ; 
if  the  cofl"ers  of  Great  Britain  could  be  open 
to  him,  it  would  more  than  atone  for  his 
defeat  in  a  land  that  his  Church  had  im- 
poverished. 

So  Cardinal  Wiseman  was  sent  to  take 
ecclesiastical  possession  of  our  land,  who 
issued  a  bombastic  letter  to  that  effect,  which 
letter  Lord  John  Russell  regarded  as  a  piece 
of  impertinence.  Of  course,  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  anger  and  resentment  in  Eng- 
land ;  but  we  had  passed  liberal  laws,  and 
the  Roman  Church  went  on  its  way  un- 
molested.    Undoubtedly,  too,  it  made  pro- 

74 


The  Determination  of  Rome 

gress  under  Wiseman's  guidance.  He 
gathered  together  the  scattered  members  of 
his  flock  and  united  them.  Of  the  Cardinal's 
aims  and  intentions  there  is  no  manner  of 
doubt.  It  was  to  reconquer  England  for 
Rome. 

What  Wiseman  commenced,  Manning,  an 
eager  convert  to  the  Roman  faith,  continued. 
Speaking  to  his  clergy,  he  uttered  words 
the  purport  of  which  cannot  be  mistaken. 
He  said :  "  It  is  good  for  us,  reverend 
brothers,  to  be  here  in  England.  If  ever 
there  was  a  country  in  which  there  is  much 
to  do,  and  perhaps  much  to  suffer,  it  is  here. 
I  shall  not  say  too  much  if  I  say  that  it  is 
for  us  to  subjugate  and  sul^due,  to  conquer 
and  to  rule,  an  imperial  race.  We  have  to 
do  with  a  will  which  reigns  throughout  the 
world,  as  the  will  of  Old  Rome  reigned  once  ; 
and  it  is  for  us  to  bend  or  break  that  will, 
which  nations  and  kingdoms  have  found  in- 
vincible and  inflexible.  Were  heresy  con- 
quered in  England,  it  would  be  conquered 
throughout  the  world.  All  its  lines  meet 
here,  and  therefore  in  England  the  Church 
of  God  must  be  gathered  in  all  its  strength. 
,    -    .   You  have  a  great  commission  to  fulfil, 

7S 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

and  great  is  the  prize  for  which  you  strive. 
Surely  a  soldier's  life  and  a  soldier's  heart 
would  choose  by  intuition  this  field  of  Eng- 
land for  the  warfare  of  the  faith." 

One  is  tempted  to  examine  these  well- 
known  words.  iHis  purpose  is  to  conquer 
England.  Not  that  she  may  have  a  greater 
liberty  or  a  larger  faith.  The  purpose  is  to 
subjugate  and  to  subdue,  to  conquer  and  to 
rule.  It  is  "  to  bend  or  break  the  will  that 
nations  have  found  invincible  and  in-f 
flexible."  Surely  it  will  be  good  for  us  all 
if  we  try  and  understand  the  inwardness  of 
Manning's    words. 

•When  Manning  died  Vaughan  took  up 
his  work.  The  great  cathedral  at  West- 
minster owes  its  existence  largely  to  the  pre- 
late who  never  tired  of  urging  his  disciples 
to  spare  no  effort  to  win  England,  and  who 
apparently  never  gave  up  the  hope  that  his 
purpose  would   be  accomplished. 

It  is  an  admitted  fact  that  Rome  has  lost, 
not  only  numbers,  but  power,  in  every 
Catholic  country  on  the  Continent.  France 
has  slipped  from  her  grasp  and  become  an 
atheist  country.  Northern  Italy  has  followed 
in  the  train  of  F.rance.     There,  one  hears 

76 


The   Determination  of   Rome 

on  every  hand,  the  priest  is  despised,  while 
the  claims  of  the  Church  are  being  laughed 
at  as  idle  tales.  Spain,  the  most  Catholic 
country  in  Europe,  does  not  count.  'Her 
wealth  and  power  are  gone  ;  her  people  have 
been  crushed  for  centuries  by  the  hands  of 
the  priest.  Portugal,  as  far  as  real  power 
is  concerned,  is  a  mere  name  on  a  map  ; 
but  even  here  the  Church  has  lost  much  of 
her  sway,  while  in  Austria  the  people  by  the 
thousand  are  turning  their  backs  on  Rome. 

All  this  is  freelv  admitted,  but  to  atone 
for  this  is  the  fact  that  Rome  has  advanced 
in  England ;  and  the  Papacy  is  straining 
every  nerve  to  make  this  Protestant  land 
of  ours   yield   to   tlie   claims   she  asserts. 

Moreover,  one  cannot  but  feel  a  certain 
admiration  for  the  votaries  of  Rome  ; 
neither  can  we  help  commending  some  of 
the  means  she  uses.  If  Rome  cannot  con- 
quer in  England,  Rome  is  doomed  1  Joseph 
McCabe  says  in  his  book  on  the  decay  of 
the  Roman  Church— and  surely  if  ever  a  man 
was  in  a  position  to  know,  it  is  he — Rome  is 
losing  ground  everywhere.  He  asserts  that 
in  about  half  a  century  she  has  lost 
80,000,000  of  adherents,  that  one  by  one 

7; 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

the  nations  are  casting  her  off  as  the  arch^ 
enemy  of  their  welfare,  that  her  distinctive 
doctrines  are  regarded  as  old  wives'  fables. 
Thus  it  is  vital  to  her  to  gain  power  in 
England.  As  Manning  says  :  "  Were  heresy 
conquered  in  England,  it  would  be  con- 
quered everywhere.  All  its  lines  meet  here, 
and  thus  it  is  here  in  England  that  the 
Church  of  God  must  be  gathered  in  all  her 
strength." 

But  if  it  fails  1  If  England  spurns  the 
Roman  claims  as  she  spurned  them  three 
centuries  ago  I 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  Rome  bends 
all  her  energies  to  establish  herself  in  this 
land  of  freedom. 

That  Rome's  methods  are  specious  and 
often  plausible  we  cannot  deny.  She  does 
not  come  to  us  as  she  came  to  Holland  in 
the  days  of  William  the  Silent — with  sword 
and  faggot.  She  comes  with  no  curses,  no 
thunders  of  excommunication,  no  threats  of 
an  eternal  hell,  as  she  did  then.  Rather 
she  flatters  us.  She  tells  us  that  as  a  nation 
we  have  been  champions  of  liberty,  and  that 
we  are  the  home  of  a  free  people.  She 
does  not  tell  us  that  it  is  her  purpose  to 

78 


The   Determination  of  Rome 

rob  us  of  our  freedom.  She  claims  freedom 
in  order  to  advance  Romanism  in  England, 
but  she  does  not  tell  us  that  if  she  had 
the  power,  she  would  forbid  any  Protestant 
worship  in  our  land.  She  does  not  tell  us 
that  as  long  as  the  Pope  reigned  in  Rome 
no  one  was  allowed  to  conduct  Protestant 
worship  within  the  walls  of  that  ancient  city. 
If  she  told  us  of  these  things,  which  are 
undoubtedly  true,  she  would  frustrate  her 
own  purposes. 

In  this  respect  I  cannot  help  being  re- 
minded of  a  conversation  I  once  had  with 
a  monsignor  of  the  Popish  Church  in  Rome, 
who  has  since  been  made  a  bishop.  I  asked 
him  what  the  Church  would  do  with  me  if 
it  had  its  ancient  power,  and  I  were  to  preach 
Protestantism,  which  he  regarded  as  heresy. 
His  reply  was  very  clear,  very  definite.  "  .We 
would  quickly  put  a  stop  to  your  heresy, 
young  man,"  he  said. 

Exactly,  but  Rome  does  not  proclaim 
these  things  here  in  England.  Slie  wears 
the  velvet  glove  over  the  hand  of  steel,  and 
hopes  that  people  who  have  short  memories 
in  relation  to  the  great  facts  of  history  will 
not  see  the  steel— but  it  is  there. 

79 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Thus  the  first  endeavour  of  Rome  is  evi- 
dently to  remove  the  one-time  fear  and  hatred 
of  the  Papacy,  because  she  knows  that  until 
that  is  done  her  task  is  hopeless.  It  is  true 
that  the  people's  eyes  are  from  time  to  time 
opened  by  such  actions  as  those  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Malta,  who  made  it  impossible 
for  the  Rev.  John  McNeill  to  preach  the 
gospel  in  that  island,  and  threatened 
every  Catholic  with  excommunication  who 
should  take  part  in  the  building  of  a  Protes- 
tant church  there,  but  these  facts  are  being 
glossed  over,  and  Rome  appears  in  England 
with  a  smiling  face.  Nay  more,  she  ap- 
pears as  the  advocate  of  a  broad  charity, 
and  accuses  of  bigotry  those  who  expose 
her  real  nature. 

Her  organisations  and  plans  are  carefully 
thought  out,  and  have  at  their  back  millions 
of  workers  and  great  wealth.  Roughly 
speaking,  her  means  for  conquering  England 
may  be  summed  up  as  follows  : 

First,  the  Apostolate  of  Prayer.  From 
what  I  can  gather  millions  are  praying 
daily  for  the  conversion  of  England  to  the 
Roman  faith.  When  I  was  in  Rome  some 
years   ago,    I   saw,   while  visiting  a  Roman 

80 


The   Determination  of  Rome 

Catholic  church,  a  prayer,  printed,  and 
placed  on  the  doors  of  the  church.  It  was 
for  the  conversion  of  England.  There  were 
English,  Italian,  and  French  copies  of  this 
prayer,  and  a  priest  told  me  that  it  was 
offered  by  millions  of  people  all  over 
Europe.  Whatever  else  may  be  the  result  of 
this,  it  will  at  least  tend  to  fan  into  a  flame 
the  fervour  of  those  who  offer  the  prayer, 
and  incite  them  to  deeds  of  service. 

In  addition  to  this  their  power  in  the  Press 
of  England  is  very  great.  Some  time  ago 
when  reading  a  Paper  at  the  Annual  Meeting 
of  the  Evangelical  Free  Church  Council  at 
Swansea,  I  gave  expression  to  the  opinion 
that,  considering  the  numbers  of  Roman 
Catholics  in  England,  an  inordinate  amount 
of  space  was  given  to  their  doings.  For 
this  tlie  Press  severely  took  me  to  task,  and 
stated  that  my  remarks  were  utterly  without 
foundation.  I  do  not  hint  now,  as  I  had 
no  thought  of  suggesting  then,  that  there  was 
any  collusion  between  the  editors  of  our 
great  daily  pajjers  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  authorities.  No  such  thought  ever 
entered  my  mind.  Yet  I  did  not  speak 
withou^  due   care.      For  months  in  reading 

8l  O 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

the  daily  papers  which  came  under  my  notice 
this  fact  was  pressed  upon  me.  The  space 
given  to  Catholic  doings  was  altogether  out 
of  proportion  to  their  numbers  in  this 
country,  while  the  news  in  nearly  every  case 
represented  Romanism  in  the  most  favour- 
able light.  Whether  I  was  right  or  wrong 
in  this,  it  was  and  is  my  deliberate  convic- 
tion, and  the  conviction  was  forced  upon 
me  by  a  careful  observance  of  such  daily 
papers  as  I  saw.  Then  this  fact  also  shines 
out :  This  Paper,  for  which  I  received  many 
hundreds  of  letters  of  thanks  from  all  classes 
and  conditions  of  people,  v/as  described  by 
the  most  opprobrious  epithets.  One  London 
daily  paper  described  it  as  an  "  orgie  of 
bigotry,"  while  another  pilloried  me  as 
though  I  were  a  criminal. 

Of  course  it  is  urged  that  a  nev/spaper 
naturally  prints  what  will  make  good  copy, 
and  doubtless  there  may  be  much  truth  in 
this  assertion.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
one  could  not  help  being  struck  with  the 
nature  of  the  articles  which  appeared  de- 
scriptive of  the  Eucharistic  Conference  in 
London.  Many  of  them  were  fulsomely 
adulative.      But  as  far  as  I  can  remember 

82 


The   Determination  of   Rome 

not  one  article  spoke  of  the  bloody  battles 
which  were  fought  in  this  and  other  lands 
in  order  to  break  the  power  which  that  Con- 
gress represented.  The  Mass  stood  for  some 
of  the  cruellest  and  blackest  deeds  in  history, 
and  yet  in  this,  a  Protestant  country,  when 
we  were  told  that  Christ,  who  had  been 
banished  from  the  country  for  centuries,  was 
to  be  brought  back  to  us  by  an  Italian  priest, 
only  one  of  our  daily  papers,  as  far  as  I 
am  aware,  told  its  readers  the  truth  concern- 
ing these  matters.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
were  poetical  word  pictures  about  the  mystic 
lights  on  the  faces  of  the  priests,  the  tinkling 
of  bells,  the  swinging  of  censers,  and  the 
solemn  musical  voices  of  the  foreign  priests. 
Again  I  repeat,  I  do  not  hint  or  suggest— 
I  never  have  hinted  or  suggested— that  there 
is  the  slightest  collusion  between  the  editors 
of  our  daily  papers  and  the  Roman  Church  ; 
but  I  do  not  think  that  any  sane  person  can 
deny  that  the  Roman  Church,  the  great 
enemy  in  every  country  where  she  has  power 
to  the  dissemination  of  light,  uses  the  Press 
as  one  of  her  means  of  propaganda.  Indeed, 
in  the  "Daily  Mail  Year  Book"  for  1909 
it    is   suggested   that    Rome   is   a   dominant 

83 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

power  in  the  British  Press.  Of  course 
I  do  not  blame  Rome  for  this — rather  I 
admire  her  astuteness  in  utiUsing  what  Pro- 
testantism has  made  possible.  Nevertheless, 
many  feel  that  there  is  much  truth  in  a 
letter  which  the  Archdeacon  of  London  (Dr. 
Sinclair)  wrote  to  the  Churchman  in  August, 
1896:  "Never  were  the  Roman  Catholics 
more  active.  .  .  .  Their  influence  on  the 
London  Press  is  immense  ;  it  would  be  very 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  anything  to 
be  inserted  in  the  London  newspapers  which 
would  damage  or  expose  their  policy.'' 

I  do  not  think,  however,  that  this  is  alto- 
gether true.  The  way  that  such  a  paper  as 
the  Daily  News  dealt  with  the  murder  of 
Ferrer  shows  that  at  least  one  newspaper 
dares  to  speak  the  truth.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  a  publication  which  advertises  itself 
as  the  most  widely  circulated  penny  news- 
paper in  England  described  Ferrer's  trial  as 
having  been  "  conducted  with  perfect  honour 
and  honesty  "  1 

Another  means  by  which  they  seek  to 
reconquer  England  is  through  their  nun- 
neries and  monasteries.  It  is  a  fact  little 
knovvii,  but  it  is  asserted  by  those  who  have 

84 


The  Determination  of  Rome 

carefully  investigated  the  matter,  that  there 
is  a  larger  number  of  religious  houses  in  our 
land  to-day  than  existed  immediately  before 
the  time  of  the  dissolution  of  monasteries. 
It  is  impossible  to  tell  the  number  of  inmates 
in  these  religious  houses,  simply  because  no 
returns  are  made  to  any  State  authority  of 
whatever  sort.  The  words  of  Sir  Godfrey 
Lushington,  which  he  contributed  to  the 
National  Review  in  May,  1903,  should  be 
carefully  considered  by  all  who  have  an 
interest  in  our  land.     He  says  : 

"  In  practice  religious  houses  are  shrouded 
in  secrecy.  No  one  knows  anything  about 
them.  The  Home  Office  docs  not.  Nor 
does  the  Local  Government  Board.  Nor 
does  Dublin  Castle,  nor  does  Somerset 
House.  The  Census  gives  no  statistics  show- 
ing the  number  of  religious  houses  and  their 
locality,  or  the  number  of  penitents,  or 
the  number  of  inmates.  Still  less  is  there 
any  official  knov/ledge  of  the  rules  with 
regard  cither  to  inmates  or  penitents.  If,  for 
instance,  we  wanted  such  rules  in  the  case 
of  the  House  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  we 
should,  I  suppose,  have  to  go  for  them  to 
Angers  or  to  Rome." 

8«; 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

Practically  no  other  country  in  Europe 
admits  these  Orders  without  inspection  and 
the  strictest  regulations,  while  in  countries 
like  Italy  the  State  will  have  none  of  them. 
But,  driven  from  other  nations,  as  the  homes 
of  treason  and  danger  and  a  menace  to  the 
best  life  in  the  State,  they  have  come  to 
England,  they  have  bought  some  of  our 
fairest  lands,  and  established  themselves  in 
our  midst.  Certain  it  is  that  they  have  in- 
creased enormously  during  the  last  few  years, 
as  statistics  show.  In  185 1  there  were  70 
monasteries  and  nunneries,  while  in  1908 
there  were  1,131,  and,  according  to  report, 
they  are  increasing  month  by  month. 

It  must  be  remembered,  moreover,  that 
these  houses  are  not  all  of  the  contemplative 
or  "  closed  "  nature.  They  are  utilised  as 
a  means  of  spreading  the  Roman  faith. 
Attached  to  many  of  them  are  schools  to 
which  Protestant  parents,  attracted  by  the 
smallness  of  the  fees,  and  the  promise  of  a 
good  French  accent,  send  their  children.  By 
this  means  they  gain  influence  in  Protestant 
homes  and  win  converts. 

Closely  allied  to  these  are  institutions  for 
training  governesses,  nurses,  &c.     By  this 

86 


The   Determination  of  Rome 

means  Protestant  homes  are  entered,  and 
in  many  cases  perverts  made.  During  the 
last  few  years  I  have  been  told  of  cases 
where  Catholic  young  women,  pretending  to 
be  Protestants,  have  obtained  situations  in 
Protestant  homes  as  governesses  and  the 
like,  and  have  succeeded  in  instilling  their 
faith  into  the  minds  of  their  pupils. 

Dr.  Robertson  of  Venice  gives  the  follow- 
ing instance  in  his  new  work,  "  The  Papal 
Conquest."  A  lady  in  London,  v/ho  having 
occasion  to  leave  her  children  for  a  time, 
engaged  a  governess  who  was  strongly  re- 
commended as  a  good  Protestant.  When 
she  returned,  she,  according  to  her  custom, 
called  her  children  to  her  before  their  retire- 
ment to  hear  them  say  their  prayers.  They 
at  once  crossed  themselves,  and  began  to 
pray  to  the  Madonna.  On  this  she  called 
the  governess  to  explain,  who  confessed  that 
she  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  held  a  dis- 
pensation to  pretend  to  be  a  Protestant.  Of 
course  this  "  Protestant  "  governess  was 
quickly  sent  about  her  business. 

Whether  this  goes  on  to  a  very  large  ex- 
tent it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  in  these  days 
of  lax  religious  beliefs,  and  when  people  are 

87 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

too  "  broad-minded,"  and  '*  charitable  "  to 
care  whether  the  instructors  of  their  children 
are  Romanists  or  Protestants,  it  is  un- 
doubtedly a  fact  that  governesses,  com- 
panions, and  teachers  trained  in  Catholic 
institutions  find  their  way  into  Protestant 
homes,  and  pervert  the  minds  of  the 
children.  In  short,  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  daily  training  and  sending  out  a  great 
band  of  missioners  whose  work  is  to  undo 
the  work  of  the  Reformation,  and  to  win 
back  England  to  Rome, 

In  addition  to  this,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Orders  like  that  of  the  Jesuits  exercise 
a  great  influence.  How  much  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  Joseph  McCabe  says,  in  his 
story  of  Ferrer,  the  Spanish  martyr,  which 
has  just  been  published,  that  the  Jesuits 
practically  rule  Spain.  He  asserts  that  they 
have  entered  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  the 
nation's  life,  with  the  result  that  the  people 
are  cursed  with  a  great  curse.  That  the 
Society  of  Jesus  has  influenced  the  life  of 
nations,  and  in  many  cases  has  dictated 
their  policy  is  a  matter  of  history.  It  is  also 
a  matter  of  history  that  nation  after  nation 
has  again  and  again  expelled  that   Society 

88 


The   Determination  of  Rome 

from  its  borders.  Practically  wherever  the 
Jesuits  have  gone  they  have  gone  to  curse. 
Their  influence  has  been  felt  in  the  darkest 
deeds  of  the  world,  and  peoples  have  been 
obliged,  for  the  sake  of  their  own  wellbeing, 
to  drive  them  from  their  midst.  That  Society 
is  now  working  in  England,  and  its  power, 
although  secret,  is  undoubtedly  great,  not 
only  as  an  intellectual  force  of  the  Church, 
but  also  as  a  political  influence. 

Doubtless,  moreover,  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  seeking  to  advance  her  aims  through  the 
English  Parliament,  and  her  power  is  felt 
there.  The  consideration  of  one  fact  helps 
us  to  realise  that  she  has  an  influence  in 
Parliament  altogether  out  of  proportion  to 
her  number  in  this  land.  At  the  most 
generous  estimate,  statisticians  show  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  does  not  number  in 
Great  Britain  more  than  from  1,500,000 
to  1,800,000  persons,  while  of  these  only 
200,000  arc  English.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Free  Churches  of  England  number  at 
least  half  of  the  church-going  portion  of  the 
population.  Yet  it  is  matter  of  public 
notoriety  that  when  Mr.  Balfour's  Govern- 
ment passed  the  present  education  laws  the 

89 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

Church  of  Rome  was  consulted,  but  no 
Free  Church  leader  of  any  sort  was  called 
into  consultation.  Indeed,  it  was  after 
Cardinal  Vaughan  was  asked  to  represent 
the  Catholics  in  connection  with  the  Educa- 
tion Act  of  1902  that  he  was  led  to  boast 
that  they  had  "  dished  the  Nonconformists." 
Few  will  dispute  the  fact  that  but  for  the 
Roman  Catholics  and  the  so-called  "  English 
Catholics"  the  education  difficulty  would  long 
since  have  been  settled  on  an  equitable  basis. 
Their  power  is  felt,  too,  in  election  times. 
Again  and  again  it  is  urged  among  parlia- 
mentary candidates  that  the  "  Catholic 
vote  "  must  be  captured.  In  this  respect 
I  cannot  help  again  referring  to  the  Paper  I 
read  at  the  Free  Church  Council  at  Swansea. 
I  there  stated  that  when  Mr.  Corbett's 
Bill  for  the  inspection  of  convents  came 
before  Parliament  a  large  number  of  Free 
Church  Members  voted  against  it.  The  next 
day  a  Free  Church  Member  of  Parliament 
who  has  consistently  voted  for  convent  in- 
spection explained  why.  He  said  that  these 
men  were  thinking  of  the  next  election,  and 
knew  that  if  they  voted  for  Mr.  Corbett's 
measure  they  would  lose  the  Catholic  vote. 

90 


The   Determination  of   Rome 

I  dare  not  let  myself  express  my  opinion 
of  these  "  descendants  of  the  Puritans,"  who 
in  order  to  catch  votes  are  said  to  have 
refrained  from  voting  for  a  necessary  re- 
form ;  but  I  would  suggest  that  the  fact 
indicates  the  power  of  the  Romanists  in  the 
country.  Not  only  do  they  hold  the  balance 
of  power  in  the  new  Government  in  the 
House  oi;  Commons,  but  they  are  often 
supposed  to  control  individual  elections. 
Personally  I  think  we  have  too  long 
pandered  to  the  "  Catholic  vote,"  and  it 
would  be  well  for  both  parties  to  treat  it 
as  a  negligible  quantity.  It  is  never  to  be 
depended  on,  and  what  is  more,  it  will 
always  be  a  hindrance  to  necessary  reform. 
For  here  is  the  fact  :  the  Catholic  vote  is 
in  the  main  ruled  by  the  priest,  and  the 
priest  is  ever  and  always  a  Romanist  first 
and  an  Englishman,  if  he  is  an  Englishman, 
afterwards. 

A  friend  of  mine,  who  is  a  large  employer 
of  labour  in  Lancashire,  asked  one  of  his 
men  in  the  1906  election  whether  he  had 
made  up  his  mind  which  way  he  was  going 
to  vote.  "  I  don't  know  yet,  sir,"  replied 
the    man  ;    "  we    shan't    know    till    Sunday. 

Father will  tell  us  then  "  1 

91 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

If  Free  Churchmen  or  Protestants  of  any 
sort  will  consent  to  go  cap  in  hand  to  the 
priest  in  order  to  obtain  votes,  and  will 
refrain  from  voting  on  the  side  of  liberty 
and  humanity  for  fear  of  losing  them,  we 
have  indeed  fallen  upon  evil  times  ! 

In  addition  to  all  these  forces  and 
organisations  there  is  the  large  army  of 
priests,  the  numbers  of  which  are  daily 
swelling  in  our  midst.  In  1908  there  were 
4,193,  as  compared  with  958  in  185 1. 
Of  course  these  cannot  all  be  required  to 
look  after  existing  Romanists,  and  thus  many 
of  them  must  be  missioners  whose  business 
is  to  try  and  make  converts.  On  every  hand, 
too.  Catholic  churches  are  springing  up, 
Roman  Catholics  doubtless  believing  that 
the  money  will  have  been  well  spent  on 
these  buildings  if  eventually  the  coffers  of 
England  are  open  to  them. 

Roughly  speaking,  then,  this  is  the  plan 
of  campaign,  and  these  are  the  forces  at 
work.  In  the  main,  the  great  army  is  work- 
ing quietly,  secretly,  subtly  in  our  midst. 
Its  votaries  and  advocates  are  everywhere. 
They  seek  admission  into  the  homes  of  rich 
and  poor.     They  endeavour  to  explain  away 

92 


The   Determination  of   Rome 

the  facts  of  history,  and  they  appear  before 
us  with  smiling  faces,  as  though  nothing 
but  our  good  and  happiness  inspired  their 
labour.  Doubtless  there  are  devoted, 
earnest,  pure  people  among  them  ;  doubt- 
less, too,  many  of  them,  most  of  them,  think 
they  are  doing  the  will  of  God  by  seeking 
to  extend  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  their 
faith. 

In  setting  down  these  facts  it  must  not 
be  supposed  that  I  object  to  their  seeking 
to  pervert  England.  Believing  as  they  do, 
they  can  do  no  other.  All  the  same,  it  is 
surely  right  that  we  should  understand  what 
is  going  on  in  our  midst,  and  should  re- 
member, again  quoting  the  words  of  Cardinal 
Manning,  that  it  is  their  aim  "  to  subjugate, 
and  to  subdue,  to  conquer  and  to  rule  an 
imperial  race  ...  to  bend  or  to  break  the 
will  which  nations  and  kingdoms  have  found 
invincible  and  inflexible." 

In  other  words,  they  are  determined  to 
conquer  England  for  Rome. 


-w.-rV 


93 


CHAPTER   IV 

ROME'S    PROSPECTS    OF    SUCCESS 

In  dealing  with  Rome's  prospects  of  success 
we  are  naturally  led  to  consider  two  facts — 
first,  the  strength  of  the  invading  army ; 
and,  second,  the  resisting  power  of  the  land 
which  is  invaded. 

Referring  for  a  moment  to  the  first,  we 
cannot  deny  that  the  invading  army  is,  in 
the  main,  eager,  enthusiastic,  determined. 
This  means  a  great  deal.  Whatever  other 
power  the  Roman  Church  has,  it  has  the 
power  to  inspire  her  followers  with  zeal. 
Moreover,  it  is,  outwardly,  an  united  body. 
The  Roman  system  favours  this.  Like  all 
other  systems  which  depend  in  the  main  on 
superstition  and  emotionalism,  it  can  com- 
mand obedience  from  the  unthinking  and 
the  uneducated.  Rome  allows  of  no  free- 
dom   of    investigation    and    discussion    on 

94 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

religious  matters.  Her  mandates  are  final 
and  authoritative.  The  Pope  in  his  late 
encyclical  practically  prohibits  thought  in 
the  domain  of  faith.  The  Church  claims  in- 
fallibilit}^  the  Pope  claims  infallibility  ;  there- 
fore to  doubt  the  Church's  decrees  is  sin. 
Provision  is  made  for  nearly  every  other  con- 
dition of  life  ;  but  doubt  is  a  deadly  monster 
which  must  be  destroyed.  Of  course  this 
has  had  the  effect  of  driving  enlightened 
people  from  her.  Out  of  the  i8o  millions 
which  compose  her  follov/ers  120  millions 
are  among  the  most  illiterate.  Educated 
and  advancing  nations,  such  as  France  and 
Italy,  throw  off  her  yoke.  Vast  numbers 
who  call  themselves  Catholics  because  they 
were  born  in  the  faith  shrug  their  shoulders 
with  a  laugh  of  derision  at  the  Church's 
claims.  Nevertheless,  those  who  can  place 
themselves  in  the  attitude  of  mind  to  accept 
without  reason,  and  to  give  a  blind  obedience 
to  authority  without  asking  questions, 
become  a  strong  fighting  force.  A  fanatical 
force  it  may  be,  but  still  powerful. 

"Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die." 

95 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

I  remember  reading  in  a  Catholic  paper 
some  years  ago  a  speech  of  a  priest.  He 
was  speaking  about  the  difficulty  which  some 
had  about  believing  the  story  of  the  whale 
swallowing  Jonah.  "  Personally,"  he  said, 
"  if  the  Church  taught  me  that  Jonah 
swallowed  the  whale  I  should  believe  it, 
because  I  should  know  that  whatever  the 
Church  taught  was  true."  Also  when  visit- 
ing Ireland  some  years  ago  a  Jesuit  priest, 
the  head  of  a  college  for  training  young 
priests,  said  to  me  :  "  I  believe  that  every- 
thing the  Church  has  done  is  right,  and  that 
everything  she  will  do  will  be  right." 

"  What,"  I  queried,  "  do  you  believe 
that  the  ghastly  terrors  of  the  Spanish  In- 
quisition were  right?  Do  you  believe  that 
the  bloody  massacres  in  the  Netherlands 
were  according  to  the  mind  and  spirit  of 
Christ?" 

"  Most  assuredly,"  was  his  reply. 

Well,  when  a  community  can  become 
filled  with  a  spirit  like  this,  you  are  bound 
to  have  an  eager,  aggressive  army.  And  this 
is  the  spirit  of  earnest  Romanists.  They 
ask  no  questions  ;  they  do  not  think  their 
own  r.houghts  on  religion  ;    but  they  obey, 

96 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

obey  without  question.  The  Church  has 
commanded,  and  they  go  forward  un- 
hesitatingly. 

Now,  earnestness,  even  in  a  wrong  cause, 
is  bound  to  have  effect.  No  enthusiastic, 
earnest  man  pleads  in  vain.  Man  is  largely 
influenced  by  emotion,  by  sentiment,  and 
this  fact  is  in  favour  of  the  Roman  propa- 
gandists. For  the  Romanists  who  desire  to 
convert  England  are  in  earnest. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  to  consider 
the  nature  of  the  people  they  hope  to  con- 
quer. We  remember  the  dogged,  insistent, 
strong  people  who  have  made  the  British 
nation  such  a  power  throughout  the  world. 
Will  England,  the  home  of  liberty,  give  up 
her  liberty?  Will  the  people  of  England,  who 
for  centuries  have  fought  to  the  death  for  the 
right  to  think  on  the  great,  deep  questions  of 
life  go  back  to  the  yoke  of  bondage?  Will 
England  be  ruled  from  Rome?  'Will  Scot- 
land forget  the  Covenanters  who  signed  the 
great  Covenant  with  their  own  blood,  barter 
away  the  heritage  which  has  made  the  land 
great?  Will  Wales,  who  has  lived  on  the 
truth  that  "  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
is  there  is  liberty,"  and  who  has  given  the 

97  H 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

noblest  of  her  sons  for  the  cause  of  freedom, 
go  back  to  the  yoke  of  bondage?  Will 
Great  Britain  forget  her  history?  forget  the 
struggles  of  her  heroes  who  fought  and  died 
that  the  shackles  which  Rome  placed  on  the 
hands,  on  the  necks,  on  the  souls  of  its 
people  might  be  broken?  Shall  the  candle 
which  Ridley  and  Latimer  lit  outside  Balliol 
College  be  put  out?  Shall  those  glorious 
truths  which  were  given  us  by  the  Reforma- 
tion be  forgotten,  while  a  numbing,  para- 
lysing superstition  creeps  along  the  nerves 
of  a  great  people  ? 

Directly  these  questions  appeal  to  us 
our  natural  answer  is,  "  No,  never  1  "  And 
more  than  this,  so  great  is  our  hatred  of 
slavery,  so  sure  are  we  of  our  own  strength, 
that  we  feel  like  laughing  at  the  very  sug- 
gestion that  there  is  any  possibility  of  Rome 
coming  back. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  this  : 

"Vice  is  a  master  of  such  dreadful  mien 
That  to  be  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen, 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  to  the  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

This  is  true  of  any  error,  any  superstition, 
and  Roman  advocates  doubtless  remember 

98 


Rome's   Prospects  of   Success 

this  in  seeking  to  come  back  to  our  land. 
And,  more  than  this,  they  remember  that 
there  is  a  tendency  for  every  new  generation 
to  forget  the  history  of  the  past ;  and  even 
if  they  do  not  forget  that  history,  they  know- 
that  the  meaning  of  the  struggles  of  those 
long  dead  becomes  more  and  more  hard  to 
realise. 

This  being  so,  their  difficulties  are  not  so 
great  as  at  first  appears.  Coming  as  they  do, 
skilled  by  the  training  of  long  centuries,  they 
appeal  to  the  young  people  of  the  land,  in 
whom  their  hope  is  centred.  As  I  have  before 
said,  the  Church  does  not  show  the  cloven 
hoof  as  it  has  shown  it  in  Spain  in  such 
a  case  as  that  of  Sefior  Ferrer,  and  as  it 
has  shown  it  in  every  country  where  it  has 
reigned  supreme.  Rather  it  is  plausible, 
smilin;:^,  benign.  "  Look  at  us,"  say  its 
advocates.  "We  live  in  your  midst;  we 
are  your  neighbours,  your  friends.  Do  we 
bear  any  resemblance  to  the  people  described 
in  your  Protestant  histories  ?  Come  to  our 
services,  listen  to  our  beautiful  music,  pay 
heed  to  our  teaching,  and  remember  that 
ours  is  the  Church,  the  great  historic  Church, 
which   has   continued  the  same   right   down 

99 


Siiall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

through  the  ages.  Remember,  too,  that  we 
are  the  Church,  the  only  Church,  that  can 
claim  direct  descent  from  the  apostles. 
Do  not  listen  to  what  historians  say 
about  us ;  listen  to  what  we  say  about 
ourselves." 

Besides,  in  a  very  real  sense,  Romanism 
is  a  very  easy  religion.  These  are  days  of 
religious  unrest,  days  when  men  are  con- 
stantly testing  the  foundation  of  things. 
Romanism  says  :  "  Come  and  rest.  It  is 
not  for  you  to  fight  these  battles  of  faith 
on  the  solitary  battlefield  of  your  own  soul. 
The  Church  has  fought  them  for  you.  The 
Church  has  found  the  truth.  All  you  have 
to  do  is  to  rest  your  head  on  her  great 
bosom  and  obey  her."  It  is  easy,  too,  in 
other  respects.  It  does  not  demand  that 
same  stern  purity  and  righteousness  which 
Protestantism  demands.  The  priest  to  whom 
the  Catholic  confesses  has  power,  according 
to  their  teaching,  to  absolve  the  sinner  from 
his  sins,  and  thus  the  way  of  the  sinner 
becomes  easy. 

Of  course,  it  does  not  bear  five  minutes' 
critical  thought  ;  but  to  a  certain  class  of 
mind    it    is    easy   and    pleasant ;     and   thus, 

100 


Rome's  Prospects  of  Success 

among  the  uninstructed,  they  find  an  easy 
prey. 

■What  success  have  they  already  achieved  ? 
Judging  from  numbers,  I  should  imagine 
that  up  to  the  present  their  success  has  not 
been  great.  Reliable  report  says  that  the 
late  Cardinal  Vaughan  caused  a  census  to 
be  taken  in  London  of  faithful  Catholics. 
He  did  this  in  a  very  optimistic  frame  of 
mind,  intending  to  announce  the  figures 
amidst  a  blare  of  trumpets.  He  was  bitterly 
disappointed,  and  the  census  figures  were 
never  published. 

Joseph  McCabe,  in  his  "  Decay  of  the 
Roman  Church,"  says  that  the  Church  has 
lost  ground  rather  than  gained  it,  that  the 
boasted  converts  are  far  more  than  out- 
numbered  by  lapses,  and  that  in  spite  of 
the  utmost  efforts  the  Church  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  hold  her  own. 

Still,  the  vast  machinery  which  has  been 
set  in  motion  cannot  be  without  effect  ;  and 
although  the  herculean  struggles  which  have 
been  made  have  not  as  yet  resulted  in  any 
marked  increase  in  their  numbers,  they  have 
had  their  influence  in  our  land. 

Broadly    speaking,    it    seems   to   me   that 

lOI 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

the  results  of  the  movement  inaugurated 
more  than  half  a  century  ago  by  Pope 
Pius  IX.  may  be  seen  in  three  facts,  and  it 
is  these  facts  which  give  Romanists  hope  that 
they  will  again  lay  their  hand  in  power  on 
the  land  we  love. 

The  first  is  the  change  of  atmosphere. 
Time  was  when  England,  knowing  from  ex- 
perience what  Rome  really  meant,  feared  and 
hated  her.  There  was  a  feeling  of  antagonism 
to  Rome.  There  was  no  hatred  of  Roman^ 
ists  individually,  but  there  was  antagonism 
to  the  system.  The  people  knew  that  Rome 
meant  slavery  of  the  mind,  they  knew  that 
it  had  been  associated  with  every  form  of 
oppression,  they  knew  that  Pius  IX.  refused 
to  allow  the  Authorised  Version  of  our  Bible 
to  be  taken  into  Rome,  they  remembered  the 
history  of  their  land,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
any  suggestion  of  Romanism  was  feared  and 
hated. 

All  that  has  been  changed,  and  in  many 
respects  the  change  is  good.  It  is  surely 
a  good  sign  when  Christians  of  all  sorts 
can,  although  holding  differences  of  opinion, 
still  dwell  together  in  unity.  "  Let  us  respect 
every  man's  faith  "  is  the  spirit  of  our  age, 

102 


Rome*s  Prospects  of  Success 

and  it  is  a  good  spirit.  Rome  has  made  good 
use  of  this  changed  tone  and  atmosphere. 
She  has  glossed  over  the  fact  that  had  she 
the  power,  she  would  allow  none  of  these 
things,  that  as  the  very  essence  of  her 
creed  she  must  be  intolerant  because  she 
claims  infallibility  and  absolute  obedience. 
Nevertheless,  she  has  fostered  the  sentiment 
of  a  broad  liberalism  as  far  as  she  is  con- 
cerned. In  effect  she  has  said  :  "  You  Pro- 
testants, who  boast  of  a  large  charity  and 
of  an  open  mind,  you  cannot,  according  to 
the  very  fundamentals  of  your  creed,  refuse 
a  large  toleration  to  ours,  the  oldest  faith 
in  Christendom." 

And  we  have  snapped  at  the  bait  she  has 
thrown  to  us.  We  live  in  an  age  when  a 
lack  of  charity  towards  those  holding  views 
different  from  our  own  is  something  to  be 
despised  ;  and  so  when  we  have  seen  the 
earnest,  devoted  work  that  many  Catholic 
priests  and  nuns  are  undoubtedly  doing,  we 
have  learned  to  forget  that  what  Rome  was 
Rome  is,  and  must  always  be,  and  have  been 
led  to  look  upon  their  presence  in  our  midst 
with  a  kind  of  easy  toleration.  Nay,  more, 
so  much  docs  this  spirit  prevail  that  if  any 

103 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

man  dares  to  state  what  the  very  heart  of 
the  Roman  system  means  he  is  spoken  of 
as  "  narrow-minded,"  "  bigoted,"  and  the 
hke. 

No  man  beheves  more  in  large-minded- 
ness  and  toleration  than  I  ;  but  toleration 
with  a  Church  which  is  essentially  intolerant, 
avowedly  intolerant,  which  declares  in  a 
thousand  ways  that  if  she  had  the  power  she 
would  crush  and  persecute  to-day  as  she 
did  in  the  past,  is  a  question  to  be  care- 
fully considered.  If,  for  example,  a  body 
sought  to  institute  a  system  of  slavery  in 
England  such  as  was  known  in  some  of  the 
States  of  America  before  1864,  we  should 
not  be  tolerant  with  that  body.  We  should 
call  toleration  a  crime.  "  Human  liberty 
is  sacred,  and  must  be  maintained  at  all 
cost,"  would  be  our  cry.  And  we  should 
be  right.  Liberty  lies  at  the  very  roots  of 
the  best  life  of  a  people,  and  to  tamper  with 
it  would  be  to  poison  the  very  life-blood 
of  our  land.  Because  of  this  we  should 
fight  to  our  last  breath  to  maintain  the 
watchword  of  our  people.  Britons  slaves  ! 
Not  while  our  strong  right  hand  can  keep 
them  free  !     But— 

104 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

"There  is  a  bondage  which  is  worse  to  bear 
Than  his  who  breathes  by  roof  and  floor  and  wall 
Pent  in — a  tyrant's  solitary  thrall ; 
'Tis  his  who  walks  about  in  the  open  air 
One  of  a  nation  who  henceforth  must  bear 
Their  fetters  on  their  souls." 

And  yet  the  very  genius  of  Rome  is  to 
filch  our  liberty  from  us,  a  liberty  far  more 
essential  to  manhood  than  liberty  of  the 
body.  If  Rome  had  the  power,  she  would 
steal  from  us  freedom  of  speech,  freedom 
of  conscience,  freedom  of  thought,  freedom 
of  judgment  in  religious  matters. 

Says  MacLaughlin,  a  Catholic  writer,  in  a 
book  which  has  the  recommendation  of  the 
late  Pope  and  the  late  Cardinal  Manning  : 

'*  The  Catholic  Church  interdicts  the  right 
of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  faith  ;  she 
has  ever  interdicted  it,  and  she  will  continue 
to  interdict  it  to  the  end  of  time.  Free  in- 
quiry, individual  preference,  liberty  of  mind, 
freedom  of  thought,  private  judgment  in  the 
domain  of  faiili,  are  words  which  she  has  no 
ears  to  hear .  She  will  not,  she  cannot,  listen 
to  them;  t/iey  would  rend  the  rock  on  wliicli 
she  rests.'' 

Here,  then,  is  a  system  which  seems  to  be 
slowly  creeping  into  our  midst.      Its  motto 

105 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

is  Semper  eadem — "  Always  the  same."  To 
maintain  its  supremacy  over  the  minds  and 
consciences  of  the  nations  it  has  deluged 
Europe  in  blood ;  it  has  claimed  victims 
by  scores  of  thousands.  It  has  frightened 
ignorant  nations  into  submission ;  it  has 
cursed  all  who  dare  to  deny  what  they  know 
to  be  lies,  and  its  aim,  and  hope,  and  object 
is  "  to  subjugate  and  to  subdue,  to  conquer 
and  to  rule  an  imperial  race  "  ;  it  is  de- 
termined "  to  bend  or  break  the  will  that 
kingdoms  have  found  invincible  and  in- 
flexible." In  short,  its  purpose  is  to  make  us 
a  nation  of  intellectual  slaves. 

One  day  I  was  dining  with  a  Catholic 
doctor  in  Rome.  I  asked  him  if  he  had 
seen  the  famous  window  painted  by  Burne 
Jones  in  the  American  Episcopal  Church  in 
that  city.  He  replied  that  he  was  a  Catholic. 
I  asked  him  what  that  had  to  do  with  it. 
He  replied  :  "  You  must  understand  that  in 
England  and  other  Protestant  countries 
Catholics  are  allowed  to  enter  a  Protestant 
Church,  on  corfdition  that  they  will  not 
worship  there,  but  in  Catholic  countries  we 
are  not  allowed  to  enter  a  Protestant  Church 
under  any  pretext  whatever."     He  also  told 

io6 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

me  of  books  he  would  like  to  read,  but  dared 
not  because  the  Church  had  placed  them  on 
the  Index. 

Exactly.  But  if  Rome  gained  the  power 
she  desires  in  England,  she  would  govern 
our  lives  from  every  standpoint,  she  would 
decide  our  education,  our  laws,  our  books, 
our  thoughts,  and  she  would  persecute  those 
who  dared  to  disobey.  All  our  old  free 
institutions  would  go,  and  we  should  become 
another  Spain. 

Thus  the  question  comes,  Can  we  be 
tolerant  towards  such  a  system?  To  this 
I  reply  that  we  cannot  be  otherwise  than 
tolerant.  As  Protestants,  we  must  give  them 
what  they  would  refuse  us.  We  must  grant 
them  the  same  religious  freedom  we  our- 
selves demand.  This  lies  at  the  very  heart 
of  Protestantism.  It  is  true  the  Roman 
Church  will  not  adopt  this  attitude  towards 
Protestants.  In  a  pamphlet  on  "  Liberty  of 
Conscience  "  Monsignor  Croke  Robinson 
says  :  "  If  to-morrow  the  Si)anish  Govern- 
ment, as  advised  by  the  Catholic  Church, 
were  to  see  that  a  greater  evil  would  ensue 
from  granting  Religious  Liberty  than  from 
refusing    it,    then    it    would    have   a    perfect 

107 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

right  to  refuse  it.  Of  course  the  Protestant 
press  would  teem  with  charges  of  Intoler- 
ance, and  we  should  reply,  '  Toleration  to 
Protestants  is  intoleration  to  Catholics.'  "  In- 
deed, even  while  I  write,  the  attitude  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Spain  is  exactly  what 
Monsignor  Robinson  suggests  it  should  be. 
The  Spanish  Government  is  seeking  to  grant 
slight  concessions  to  Protestants,  such  as 
allowing  them  to  announce  the  times  and 
nature  of  their  services,  but  against  even  this 
the  Vatican  is  protesting.  Romanists  claim 
every  liberty  in  Protestant  countries,  but  they 
anathematise  Senor  Canalejas  for  suggesting 
even  this  tardy  justice  to  Protestants.  They 
are  straining  every  nerve  to  make  the  breath 
of  religious  liberty  impossible  in  Spain.  And 
what  they  are  doing  there  they  would  do  in 
England  if  they  had  the  power,  and  it  would 
be  in  accordance  with  the  essentials  of  their 
creed.  Are  we,  then,  to  tolerate  this  in- 
tolerant Church  in  our  land?  Yes,  we  must. 
Our  Protestantism  demands  that  we  should. 
It  demands  that  we  must  treat  Roman 
Catholics  with  kindness  and  justice.  Never- 
theless, we  should  be  acting  criminally  if 
we    did    not    seek    to    make    known    what 

loS 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

Romanism  really  means,  and  to  bid  our 
fellow -coimtr>Tnen  beware  of  a  system 
which,  if  it  gained  power,  would  filch  from 
us  the  charter  of  our  liberty. 

But  some  one  will  say :  "  What  has  it 
to  do  with  us  ?  If  people  are  such  fools  as 
to  accept  these  worn-out  fallacies,  let  them 
do  so.  It  is  no  affair  of  ours."  Yes,  but  is 
it  not  a  truer,  a  nobler  attitude  to  try  and 
show  the  real  nature  of  the  thing  that  seeks 
to  find  its  way  into  our  national  life  ? 

Be  that  as  it  may,  this  spirit  of  easy 
toleration  is  abroad,  and  it  is  something 
which  augurs  favourably  for  the  hopes  pf 
the   Romanists. 

Then  there  is  another  thing.  Our  Estab- 
lished Church  can  no  longer  be  called  a  Pro- 
testant Church.  Indeed,  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  a  large  number  of  its  ministers 
scorn  and  hate  the  word  Protestant.  What- 
ever else  it  was  before  what  is  called  the 
Oxford  Movement,  it  was  a  Protestant 
Church  ;  to-day  it  can  no  longer  be 
called  by  that  name.  Nay,  more,  it  has 
moved  Romeward  by  rapid  steps.  A  few 
years  ago  Mr.  Walter  \\'alsh  startled  the 
nation  by  his  "  Secret  History  of  the  Oxford 

log 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Movement."  The  book  came  as  a  bomb- 
shell to  many.  It  showed  that  our  national 
Church  was  riddled  with  Romanist  societies. 
It  declared  that  thousands  of  Church  of 
England  ministers,  who  had  taken  vows 
to  uphold  the  Protestant  faith,  and  whilst 
taking  the  pay  of  a  Protestant  people, 
were  seeking  to  unprotestantise  the  nation. 
It  revealed  an  amount  of  duplicity,  of 
shameful  deceit,  that  startled  thousands 
of  people  ;  and,  what  is  more,  it  is  Mr. 
Walsh's  boast  that  not  one  of  his  statements 
has  ever  been  denied.  In  spite  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Vatican  Decrees,  however,  in 
spite  of  Sir  William  Harcourt's  noble  de- 
fence of  Protestantism  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  in  his  letter  to  the  Times,  in 
spite  of  Mr.  Walsh's  and  hundreds  of  other 
books,  in  spite  of  thousands  of  protests 
coming  from  an  aggrieved  and  indignant 
community,  the  work  goes  on.  More  and 
more  among  clergymen  of  the  Church  of 
England  the  word  Protestant  is  becoming 
a  stigma  and  a  reproach,  more  and  more 
they  are  adopting  Roman  formulae,  Roman 
liturgy,  Roman  vestments,  Roman  doctrine. 
Of  course  they  have  a  perfect  right  to  do 

no 


Rome's  Prospects  of  Success 

this  if  they  wish,  but  they  have  no  right 
to  do  it  while  they  are  ministers  of  the 
Established  and  Reformed  Protestant 
Church  of  England. 

This,  however,  augurs  favourably  for  the 
success  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  the 
leaders  in  that  Church  know  it.  Indeed,  men 
like  Father  Bernard  Vaughan  throw  scorn 
and  ridicule  upon  these  Romanisers  in  the 
English  Church,  and  taunt  them  with  having 
only  a  bastard  Catholicism,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  beseeches  the  people  to  come  where 
they  can  have  the  "  real  thing."  Indeed, 
from  that  standpoint  the  Roman  Catholic 
occupies  the  logical  position.  If  you  once 
admit  the  sacerdotal  claims  of  these  so- 
called  English  Catholics,  there  is  no  stopping 
place  between  them  and  Rome. 

This  is  seen  by  both  Romanists  and 
earnest  Evangelical  clergymen.  Father 
Hugh  Benson,  when  speaking  of  the 
Romanising  influence  of  such  Church  of 
England  institutions  as  the  Community  of 
the  Resurrection  at  Mirficld,  said  :  "  On 
practically  every  point  except  the  supremacy 
of  the  Pope  we  believed  the  teaching  of  the 
Catholic      Church,     taught      most      of      its 

III 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

doctrines,  as  thousands  of  Anglican  clergy 
are  doing  to-day,  and  it  is  this  teaching  that 
is  building  the  bridge  over  which  Anglicans 
will  come  over  to  the  true  fold." 

The  late  Cardinal  Vaughan  also  boasted 
that  the  whole  tone  of  the  Church  of 
England  was  changed,  and  that  in  thousands 
of  cases  their  services  were  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishable from  that  of  the  Roman  Church, 
and  that  the  Romanist  movement  was 
spreading   day  by  day. 

Archdeacon  Sinclair,  too,  testified  the 
same  thing  ten  years  ago,  and,  alas  I  he 
has  stronger  reasons  for  doing  so  now.  He 
said  :  "  Roman  Catholics  are  influencing  the 
Church  of  England  from  within,  many  of  our 
clergy  are  in  their  service,  and  openly  pray 
for  the  Pope  ;  many  others  are  in  constant 
communication  with  them,  adopt  their  dress, 
sustain  themselves  on  their  literature,  are 
inspired  by  their  policy,  and  teach  their  doc- 
trines." 

But  there  is  still  another  thing  which  gives 
great  hope  to  the  Romanist,  and  that  is  the 
apparent  indifference  of  a  large  number  of 
Nonconformists.  Personally,  I  have  but 
little    doubt    that    the    Free    Churchmen   of 

112 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

England  and  Wales  are  as  intellectually  con- 
vinced of  their  Protestantism  as  ever.  As 
far  as  I  know  there  is  not  even  a  taint  of 
Romanism  to  be  found  in  our  Free  Churches. 
Some  time  ago  I  came  across  a  book  which 
stated  that  a  number  of  Free  Church 
ministers  were  in  league  with  the  Jesuits, 
and  acting  according  to  their  instigation.  Of 
course  the  assertion  is  too  ridiculous  to  be 
for  a  moment  entertained.  No  man  who 
knows  the  inside  of  Free  Church  life  would 
ever  have  thought  of  saying  such  an  absurd 
thing.  Among  the  twelve  or  fourteen 
thousand  Free  Church  ministers,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  its  army  of  lay  preachers,  I  doubt 
if  you  could  find  one  with  Romish  ten- 
dencies. Of  course  there  may  be  such, 
but  they  can  find  no  home  in  our  Free 
Churches.  I'he  free  air  we  breathe  kills 
the  microbe  of  Romanism. 

But  having  said  that,  there  is  another  side 
to  the  question.  There  is  a  lukewarmness, 
an  indifference  which  to  earnest  Protestants 
is  saddening.  Nay,  more,  there  is  in  some 
quarters  actual  antagonism  to  those  who  take 
a  strong  Protestant  position.  Personally,  I 
believe  the  antagonists  are  exceedingly  few, 

113  I 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

but  they  exist.  And  this  not  because  they 
have  any  predilection  towards  Rome,  but 
because  they  have  imbibed  the  spirit  of 
easy  toleration,  which  makes  aggressive  Pro- 
testantism seem  to  them  uncharitable.  There 
is  a  larger  number,  however — I  hope  it  is  not 
very  large — who  are  not  inspired  with  that 
passion  for  religious  liberty  which  caused 
our  Free  Churches  to  spring  into  being. 

Some  time  ago  a  minister  whose  name  is 
known,  and  as  far  as  I  am  aware  respected, 
throughout  the  Free  Churches  of  England, 
was  invited  by  a  number  of  leading  ministers 
to  speak  on  Protestantism  in  one  of  the 
fashionable  towns  of  England.  It  was  with 
great  difficulty  that  a  church  could  be  found 
for  him  to  speak  in.  The  deacons  and  elders 
of  one  church  after  another  refused  to  open 
their  doors  for  an  address  on  this  question, 
and  finally  the  meeting  was  held  in  a  com- 
paratively unimportant  building. 

Such  a  fact  as  this  will  doubtless  be  read 
with  astonishment,  although  I  do  not  believe 
it  is  in  the  slightest  degree  representative 
of  the  general  feeling  of  the  Free  Churches. 

Nevertheless  it  does  suggest  a  state  of 
things  that  must  give  joy  to  Romanists.     If 

114 


Rome's   Prospects  of  Success 

the  Nonconformists  of  England  have  grown 
cold  on  this  question,  then  there  is  little 
doubt  that  the  Church  of  Rome  has  made 
great  headway.  For  if  there  is  a  class  of 
the  community  that  ought  to  hate  the  Roman 
system,  it  is  the  Nonconformists  of  England 
and  Wales.  The  priest  is  ever  the  deadly 
enemy  of  the  liberty-loving  life  of  our  Free 
Churches,  and  woe  be  to  us  if  ever  the 
Roman  system  holds  sway  in  our  land  I 

This  coldness,  if  coldness  there  is — and  I 
am  very  loath  to  confess  it— is  largely  because 
of  ignorance  of  the  issues  at  stake.  There 
is  an  appalling  amount  of  ignorance  among 
both  old  and  young  in  our  Free  Churches, 
not  only  concerning  the  essential  principles 
of  Rome,  but  concerning  the  effect  of  Rome 
wherever  it  has  had  dominion.  Every 
Roman  Catholic  child  is  well  instructed  in 
the  principles  of  his  faith.  I  wonder  whether 
the  same  can  be  said  with  regard  to  the 
young  people  in  our  Free  Churches?  In  this 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  ministers  are  free 
from  blame.  Surely  it  is  for  us  to  teach  our 
people  the  principles  and  history  of  the  faith 
to  which  nationally  and  individually  we  owe 
all  that  is  best  in  our  life. 

115 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Another  reason  for  the  seeming  indiffer- 
ence of  Nonconformists  is  the  behef  that 
Protestantism  is  too  strong  in  England  for 
Rome  ever  to  come  back.  I  think  it  was  the 
Times  which  stated  during  the  Eucharistic 
Congress  in  London  that  the  Protestantism 
of  England  was  so  strong  that  it  could  afford 
to  smile  at  all  the  endeavours  v/hich  Roman- 
ists were  making.  That  is  the  feeling  of 
a  large  number  of  Nonconformists,  and  it  is 
a  feeling  that  the  Roman  Catholics  are 
taking  full  advantage  of. 

And  now,  as  I  look  back  over  what  I 
have  written,  I  ask  again  :  What  are  the 
prospects  of  Rome  ever  coming  back  to 
England  in  power?  There  is  much  in  their 
favour.  An  easy,  spurious  toleration,  which 
is  not  always  the  result  of  a  great  charity, 
but  want  of  conviction,  the  Romanising  ten- 
dency in  our  Established  Church,  and  a 
lack  of  earnestness  in  many  of  our  Free 
Churches.  These  are  facts  to  which  we 
cannot  close  our  eyes.  There  is  also  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  great  army  determined 
on  conquest,  and  that  great  army  is  backed 
by  a  mighty  organisation.  Perhaps,  too, 
there    is    another    thing    which    will    make 

u6 


Rome's   Prospects  of   Success 

Rome's  work  easier,  and  that  is  the  spirit 
of  Mammonism  and  materialism  which  has 
gripped  our  land,  and  which  may  account 
for  the  apparent  indifference  in  our  Free 
Churches. 

That  on  the  one  side.  But  there  is  an- 
other side.  Manning  is  reported  to  have 
said  on  one  occasion  :  "  Cromwell  is  not 
dead,  he  is  only  asleep,  and  he  may  awake  at 
any  moment."  Manning  never  uttered  truer 
words.  Not  only  is  Cromwell  not  dead,  but 
Protestantism  is  not  dead.  It  may  seem  at 
times  to  be  slumbering,  but  its  heart  still 
beats  with  great  mighty  throbs,  which  send 
the  lifeblood  of  liberty  throughout  the  veins 
of  the  nation.  But  it  is  time  we  were 
aroused  from  our  slumber. 

This  I  have  found  in  speaking  up  and 
down  this  land  :  the  people  respond  mightily 
to  the  Protestant  appeal.  If  there  is  indif- 
ference, it  is  from  want  of  knowledge,  not 
from  want  of  life.  What  is  needed  is  that 
the  great  facts  of  liislory  shall  be  made 
known  to  them,  tliat  the  real  nature  of  Rome 
shall  be  revealed  to  them,  that  the  story  of 
our  heroic  fathers  shall  be  told  to  tbcm,  that 
the  great  fundamental  truths  for  which  our 

117 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

Reformers  fought  and  died  shall  be  (pro- 
claimed to  them.  Let  the  people  know  these 
things  and  I  have  no  fear,  but  if  Rome  finds 
England  ignorant  concerning  what  is  most 
vital  to  her,  it  may  be  that  she  will  find  her 
an  easy  prey. 


ii8 


CHAPTER    V 

WHAT     WOULD    BE    THE    RESULT    IF    ROME 
WERE   TO    CAPTURE    ENGLAND? 

The  result  would  be  the  destruction  of 
Protestant  principles.  All  Romanists  re- 
nounce and  detest  these  principles.  While 
Romanists  are  in  a  decisive  minority  they 
only  suffer  themselves  from  the  loss  of  these 
principles.  But  when  they  are  in  a  decisive 
majority,  they  will — if  they  are  candid  they 
confess  that  they  will — ruthlessly  stamp  out 
these  principles  in  the  whole  country.  It 
cannot  be  too  plainly  asserted  that  Rome 
claims  the  right  of  coercion.  If,  in  Cardinal 
Manning's  phrase,  this  proud  country  should 
bow  her  neck  to  the  Papacy,  liberty  will 
be  crushed,  the  liberty  of  Protestants  as 
a  matter  of  course,  but  also  the  liberty  of 
the  Papists  themselves. 

The    pretence    of    liberty    made    by    the 
Roman  Church  in  England  is  only  a  show 

119 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

for  proselytising  purposes  ;  when  the  end 
is  gained  it  will  be  thrown  aside  just  as  it  is 
in  every  completely  Romanised  country. 
Every  Romanist,  every  convert  to  Rome, 
throws  his  whole  weight  into  the  scale,  to 
destroy  Protestant  principles,  and  that 
master  principle  of  all,  liberty. 

Strictly  speaking,  Protestantism  was  and 
is  simply  the  demand  for  liberty,  liberty  from 
a  galling,  crushing,  demoralising  tyranny. 
The  right  to  seek  truth,  and  to  accept  it ;  the 
right  to  exercise  private  judgment ;  the  right 
to  obey  conscience  ;  the  right  to  differ  from 
others  on  matters  of  religion  ;  the  right  to 
approach  God  directly  ;  the  right  to  worship 
in  the  way  which  conscience  directs  ;  the 
right  to  read  and  study  the  Bible,  and  to 
interpret  it  according  to  the  plain  rules  of 
philology,  of  general  knowledge,  of  common 
sense  ;  the  right  to  live  and  to  let  live — these 
rights,  the  elementary  rights  on  which  all 
spiritual  development  depends,  were  forfeit 
before  the  Reformation,  and  they  are  forfeit 
again  wherever  Rome  prevails.  Liberty  is 
the  first  of  Protestant  principles — the  hardest 
to  achieve,  the  easiest  to  lose.  There  are 
base    spirits    which    do    not    crave    liberty ; 

120 


What  would  be  the   Result 

there  are  degraded  nations  which  love  to 
be  under  a  yoke.  These  desire  nothing  more 
than  to  be  governed  and  directed,  to  sur- 
render their  freedom  of  will,  to  believe  what 
is  imposed  on  them,  to  do  what  they  are 
bidden.  Rome  is  sure  of  her  domination 
over  these  base  spirits  ;  there  are  enough 
ignorant  and  degraded  communities  in  the 
world,  there  are  enough  poor  and  depen- 
dent characters  in  every  community,  to 
provide  a  following  for  the  Pope.  But 
nations  and  men  who  have  learnt  the 
supreme  value  of  liberty  will  perish  rather 
than  bend  the  neck. 

If  Rome  should  vanquish  England, 
England  would  pass  out  of  the  first  rank 
of  nations,  for  they  are  the  nations  which 
cherish  liberty.  Her  mighty  past  would  be 
obliterated.  The  palm  and  the  crown  would 
be  transferred  to  younger  and  worthier 
peoples. 

The  Roman  system  makes  liberty  impos- 
sible.  Here  is  the  verdict  of  those  devoted 
men,  all  Catholics,  who  are  struggling  to 
recover  the  lost  liberty  in  the  Roman 
Church  :  "  Through  a  scries  of  causes  into 
which    we    need    not    here    enter,    Catholics 

lai 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

seem  to  have  lost  every  elementary  sense  of 
responsibility  and  personal  dignity.  Instead 
of  being  met  with  a  service  of  reasonable 
and  therefore  discerning  obedience,  the  acts 
of  their  supreme  rulers  are  received  with  the 
unconscious  acquiescence  of  irresponsible 
beings.  This  reacts  unfavourably  on  the 
exercise  of  authority  itself,  which  loses  sight 
of  its  proper  limits  and  its  true  functions, 
and  transforms  itself  into  an  absolutism  in- 
consistent with  that  reasonable  spiritual 
government  instituted  by  Christ,  in  whom 
we  have  passed  from  servitude  to  free- 
dom." ' 

They  are  Catholics  and  not  ignorant 
Protestants,  who  describe  the  Curia— tha.t  is, 
the  supreme  authority  of  the  Roman  Church, 
which  wields  the  terrific  engine  of  the  Papal 
infallibility— in  these  words  :  "  We  are  weary 
of  seeing  the  Church  reduced,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  to  a  bureaucracy  jealous 
of  its  surviving  scraps  of  political  power,  and 
hungering  to  get  back  all  it  once  had,  to  a 
group  of  idle  men  who,  having  dedicated 
themselves  to  a  priestly  and  apostolic  call- 
ing,   and    having    afterwards    attained    the 

»  "  The  Programme  of  Modernism,"  p.  9. 
122 


What  would  be  the   Result 

highest  ecclesiastical  grade,  enjoy  the  most 
fabulously  wealthy  benefices  as  absentee  in- 
cumbents. We  are  weary  of  seeing  her 
reduced  to  a  sterilised  force  which,  notwith- 
standing an  apparent  grandeur  that  wins  the 
facile  and  unintelligent  adulation  of  the 
multitude,  acts  as  a  brake  on  social  pro- 
gress ;  to  an  institution  which  squanders  its 
vital  energy  in  idly  dreaming  of  what  it  used 
to  be  in  ages  gone  by."  ' 

This  is  the  picture  of  the  governing 
authority  to  which  Catholics  bow  down  in 
servile  obedience.  This  is  the  authority 
which  they  reverence  as  God,  and  obey  with 
an  ardour  and  unrestraint  which  is  only 
found  in  the  basest  kind  of  earthly  tyrannies. 
They  worship  the  Government  which 
denies  them  their  liberty.  They  embrace 
their  bondage.  Intellectually  and  spiritually 
they  become  a  negligible  quantity  in  the 
life  of  nations.  Their  influence  is  only  that 
which  is  in  harmony  with  the  Autliority 
they  have  deified,  the  influence  of  money, 
of  intrigue,  of  suppressing  truth,  and  malign- 
ing, where  they  cannot  destroy,  all  who  lift 

■  "The  Programme  of  Modernism,"  p.  151. 

123 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

up  their  voices  against  the  corrupt  tyranny 
which  is  to  them  a  rehgion. 

But  it  may  be  said,  "  Surely  the  brave 
words  just  quoted  from  Catholics  show  that 
liberty  is  not  dead  in  the  Roman  Church. 
The  number,  and  activity,  and  courage  of  the 
Modernists  are  an  evidence  of  life,  and  a 
promise  of  freedom?  "  No,  the  Papal  Ency- 
clical of  1907  forbids  that  line  of  defence. 
It  tramples  down,  insults,  excommunicates 
these  writers  and  teachers,  for  even  breath- 
ing a  word  about  liberty.  It  would  be  well 
for  Protestants  to  read  this  infallible  utter- 
ance "  of  our  most  holy  Lord,  Pius  X.,  by 
Divine  Providence  Pope,  on  the  doctrines  of 
the  Modernists."  This  is  infallibility  in 
being  and  in  action,  and  we  cannot  note 
too  carefully  what  it  means. 

The  noble  truth-seeking  of  men  like 
George  Tyrrell  is  treated  by  this  authority 
as  pride  :  "  Venerable  brethren,  it  will  be 
your  first  duty  to  resist  such  victims  of 
pride,  to  employ  them  only  in  the  lowest 
and  obscurest  offices.  The  higher  they  try 
to  rise,  the  lower  let  them  be  placed,  so 
that  the  lowliness  of  their  position  may 
limit     their     power     of     causing     damage. 

124 


What  would  be  the   Result 

Examine  most  carefully  your  young  clerics 
by  yourselves  and  by  the  directors  of  your 
seminaries,  and  when  you  find  the  spirit  of 
pride  amongst  them  reject  them  without 
compunction  from  the  priesthood.  Would 
to  God  that  this  had  always  been  done  with 
the  vigilance  and  constancy  which  were 
required." 

Thus  in  future  there  cannot  be  a  priest 
who  inquires,  who  seeks  truth.  Every  priest 
must  be  an  obedient,  unquestioning  jani- 
zary of  the  Curia.  Any  who  hold  office  as 
directors  and  professors  of  seminaries,  if 
they  are  "  tainted  with  Modernism,"  are 
ruthlessly  expelled.  And  the  same  policy 
is  to  be  adopted  towards  those  who  openly 
or  secretly  lend  countenance  to  Modernism, 
either  by  extolling  the  Modernists  and 
excusing  their  culpable  conduct,  or  by 
carping  at  scholasticism  and  the  Fathers  and 
the  magisterium  of  the  Church,  or  by  refus- 
ing obedience  to  ecclesiastical  authority  in 
any  of  its  depositaries.  C 

This  is  the  proper  method  of  despotism. 
Liberty  is  not  only  curtailed,  but  crushed. 

The  Infallible  Authority,  not  content  with 
eliminating  thought  from  its  seminaries,  rc- 

125 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

vives  its  old  warfare  against  books  :  "  In 
all  cases  it  will  be  obligatory  on  Catholic 
booksellers  not  to  put  on  sale  books  con- 
demned by  the  bishop." 

As  if  this  were  not  enough,  even  meet- 
ings of  priests  are  forbidden,  lest  they  should 
provoke  one  another  to  thought  and  criti- 
cism of  the  authorities  :  "  In  the  future 
bishops  shall  not  permit  congresses  of 
priests,  except  on  very  rare  occasions. 
When  they  do  permit  them  it  shall  only  be 
on  condition  that  matters  appertaining  to  the 
bishops  or  the  Apostolic  See  be  not  treated 
in  them,  and  that  no  resolutions  or  petitions 
be  allowed  that  would  imply  a  usurpation 
of  sacred  authority,  and  that  absolutely 
nothing  be  said  in  them  which  savours  of 
Modernism,  Presbyterianism,  or  Laicism." 

This  is  Rome,  the  Rome  of  to-day.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  it  meets  the  faintest 
attempt  on  the  part  of  her  scholars,  teachers, 
or  priests  to  exercise  the  elementary  rights 
of  the  intellect  or  of  the  conscience.  We 
have  to  be  thankful  that  in  England  at 
present  the  Roman  Church  has  only  the 
power  which  a  free  country  allows.  But  it 
is   our   duty   to   remember   that   if   she   had 

126 


What   would  be  the   Result 

the  power  she  demands,  she  would  exer- 
cise her  tyrannical  coercion,  not  over  the 
priests  alone,  but  over  kings  and  govern- 
ments, and,  of  course,  over  the  individual 
layman.  She  claims  the  right  not  only  to 
censure,  to  excommunicate,  to  bully,  but 
actually  to  kill  all  who  resist  her  authority. 
Individual  Romanists,  in  England  at  least, 
may  have  no  inclination  to  assert  that  right. 
But  they  all  support,  as  the  supreme  autho- 
rity in  religion,  a  power  which  claims  the 
right,  has  exercised  it,  and  will  exercise  it 
again,  whenever  it  may  be  thought  expedient 
in  the  interests  of  the  Church.  Every  one 
should  read  Dr.  Wright's  pamphlet  on  "  The 
Persecution  of  Heretics,"  containing  extracts 
from  the  Professor  of  the  Decretals  in 
the  Gregorian  University  of  Rome,  Patir 
Marianus  de  Luca.  There  is  no  denying  that 
this  is  the  real  doctrine  of  the  Roman 
Church.  And  there  is  not  the  slightest 
hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  Professor  in 
claiming  for  the  Church  the  right  to  kill 
us  if  we  do  not  submit.  Let  me  quote  a 
single  passage.  The  assumption  is  made 
that  the  Church,  as  a  perfect  polity, 
possesses  the  rights  which  are  conceded  to 

127 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

a  secular  Government  :  "  I  said  the  Church 
is  a  perfect  society,  and  that  we  assume  is 
proved.  Then  the  right  of  the  sword  is  a 
necessary  and  effective  means  to  the  attain- 
ment of  its  end,  if  obstinate  rebels  against 
the  Church  and  disturbers  of  ecclesiastical 
peace  and  unity,  and  especially  stubborn 
heretics  and  heresiarchs,  cannot  be  pre- 
vented by  any  other  penalty  from  continuing 
to  disturb  the  order  of  the  Church  and  from 
stirring  up  others,  who  are  always  ready  to 
do  wrong,  and  especially  to  sin  against  the 
Church.  In  actual  fact  the  Church  at  first 
dealt  more  leniently  with  heretics  by  ex- 
communicating them,  confiscating  their  pro- 
perty, till  at  last  she  was  compelled  to 
inflict  the  supreme  penalty.  .  .  .  The 
Church  tried  every  means.  First  excom- 
munication alone,  then  a  pecuniary  fine  was 
added,  then  exile  ;  finally  she  was  com- 
pelled TO  fall  back  upon  death.  .  .  . 
The  only  remedy  is  to  send  them  soon 
to  their  own  place." 

Catholics  in  a  Protestant  country  try  to 
laugh  this  kind  of  teaching  out  of  court. 
But  they  cannot  show  that  it  is  not  the 
teaching    of    the    Church.     They    dare    not 

12S 


What   would   be  the   Result 

repudiate  it,  under  pain  of  ecclesiastical 
censure.  Rome  claims  the  right,  and  the 
Curia  has  the  will,  to  exterminate  all  who 
will  not  believe  in  her  and  submit  to  her. 

But  while  liberty  is  the  first,  and,  indeed, 
the  all-inclusive  system  which  must  go, 
if  ever  Rome  triumphs  in  England,  there  is 
another  principle,  more  positive,  which  is  the 
life-blood  of  Protestantism  and  the  object 
of  Rome's  oft-repeated  anathema.  From  a 
Christian  point  of  view,  we  not  only  de- 
mand liberty,  but  in  a  more  specific  sense 
"  the  liberty  with  which  Christ  has  made 
us  free." 

The  greatest  treasure  of  this  country,  and 
the  secret  of  her  greatness,  is  the  open  Bible. 
And  the  chief  reason  why  the  Bible  is  such 
a  treasure  is  that  it  leads  those  who  study 
and  believe  it  to  a  personal  religion  based 
on  a  direct  relation  with  God.  Where  the 
Bible  is  universally  accepted  and  rever- 
enced a  religion  of  this  kind  renews  itself 
in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men,  of  women, 
of  children.  Luther  designated  this  experi- 
ence as  justification  by  faith,  which  he  held 
to  be  the  articulus  stantls  aut  cadentis 
ecclesice.      In  more  general  terms  we  may 

129  K 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

describe  it  as  a  direct  and  conscious  rela- 
tion of  the  soul  with  God,  in  which  the  soul 
knows  that  it  is  passed  from  death  unto  life, 
and  rejoices  in  the  consciousness  of  pardon, 
reconciliation,  and  peace.  This  leads  to  a 
victory  over  sin,  an  indwelling  of  the  Spirit, 
and  a  growth  in  the  grace  and  knowledge 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  On  this  ex- 
perience of  God  and  salvation  the  Church 
rests.  The  Church  as  a  company  of  the 
redeemed,  in  whom  the  Redeemer  dwells, 
becomes  the  redeeming  force  in  society — as 
He  put  it,  the  community  which  is  the  salt 
of  the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world. 

Strange  to  say,  this  spiritual  reality,  which 
it  seems  to  be  the  main  object  of  the  New 
Testament  to  portray,  is  not  only  unknown 
to  the  Roman  theology,  but  is  discredited 
and  anathematised  by  the  Roman  Church. 
The  only  regeneration  known  to  Rome  is 
the  sacramental  regeneration  of  baptism,  an 
opus  operatum  which  may  be,  and  often  is, 
devoid  of  moral  and  spiritual  result.  The 
faith  in  Christ  crucified  as  the  cause  of  the 
new  birth,  and  as  the  guarantee  of  a  present 
salvation,  holds  no  place  in  the  Roman 
system,  which  demands  instead  of  it  obedi- 

130 


What  would  be  the    Result 

ence  to  the  Church  and  faith  in  the  amalgam 
of  doctrine  and  tradition,  religion  and  super- 
stition which  the  Church  enjoins.  Faith 
as  understood  by  St.  Paul  is  completely 
extruded  by  faith  as  a  forced  assent  to  a 
series  of  dogmas  and  to  a  coercive 
authority. 

The  assurance  of  salvation,  which  to  us 
has  become  the  dearest  possession,  and  the 
surest  guarantee  of  spiritual  progress,  is  by 
Rome  treated  as  presumption  or  delusion. 
She  requires  her  children  to  trust  her  for 
salvation,  not  Christ.  She  treats  the  inward 
witness  of  the  Spirit — "  the  Spirit  itself 
bcareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God  " — as  a  mere  emotion. 

All  that  wc,  with  the  New  Testament  in 
our  hands,  have  come  to  know  as  the  dis- 
tinctively Christian  experience  is  denied  and 
brushed  aside.  In  its  place  comes  a  religion 
of  abject  dependence  on  the  priest,  external 
sacraments,  prescribed  rites,  which  cannot 
bring  any  assured  peace,  because  they  do  not 
allow  the  devotee  ever  to  be  assured  of  his 
salvation.  The  Catholic  can  never  say,  with 
Paul,  "  For  me  to  live  is  Christ  and  to  die 
is  gain.'' 

131 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Manning  left  the  English  Church  and 
threw  his  whole  heart  into  the  Church  of 
his  adoption.  'He  was  a  great  power  at 
the  Vatican  Council  of  1870,  and  did  more, 
perhaps,  than  any  single  person  to  carry  the 
terrific  dogma  of  Papal  Infallibility.  On  the 
death  of  the  Pope,  when  he  was  frustrated  in 
his  desire  to  succeed  to  the  Papal  chair,  he 
returned  to  England  to  be  a  great  and  noble 
worker  for  the  people.  No  Catholic  in  recent 
years  came  so  near  to  winning  the  heart  of 
England.  His  ascetic  life  and  ascetic  face, 
the  poverty  in  which  he  died,  the  innumer- 
able converts  whom  he  received  into  "  the 
Church,"  raised  him  to  an  altitude  which 
might  be  called  sanctity.  Certainly  he  died 
in  the  odour  of  sanctity.  It  is  not  rash, 
therefore,  to  assume  that  whatever  comfort 
and  assurance  of  salvation  Catholicism  can 
give  Manning  had.  Such  hope  and  blessing 
as  the  system  offers  must  have  come  to  this 
protagonist,  who  had  sacrificed  everything 
for  the  Church,  and  lived  in  absolute  con- 
formity to  the  Church's  ideal  and  the 
Church's  demands.  I  remember  reading  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  in  1895,  a  remarkable 
utterance  that  he  was  reported  to  have  made. 

132 


What  would   be  the   Result 

On  his  deathbed,  we  were  told,  he  earnestly 
besought  those  around  him  to  pray  that  he 
might  get  into— heaven  ?  no,  but  purgatory.' 
Purgatory  seemed  the  one  desirable  doom  that 
he  might  pray  for.  According  to  the  teaching 
of  the  Church,  which  he  well  knew,  the  pains 
of  purgatory  are  as  great  as  those  of  hell,  the 
only  difference  being  that  they  purge  and 
purify.  The  process  of  purgatory  may  last 
for  thousands  of  years,  so  that  an  indulgence 
granted  by  the  Pope  to  shorten  the  term  by 
a  century  or  two  is  a  boon  which  the  Catholic 
will  do  anything  to  gain.  Cardinal  Man- 
ning's prayer  was  that  he  might  go  into  this 
age-long  torture  in  the  hope  of  finally  issuing 
forth  ready  for  heaven. 

What  an  incalculable  distance,  ethical  and 
religious,  is  this  from  the  New  Testament 
and  the  joyful  confidence  of  Paul,  with 
"  Christ  in  liim  the  hope  of  glory,"  "  For 
me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain." 

The  Roman  Church  still  maintains  the 
New  Testament  to  be  inspired  and  authorita- 
tive, as  the  Encyclical   "  Pasccndi   Gregis  " 

'  This  fact  I  have  every  reason  to  credit,  because 
it  was  stated  in  my  "  England's  Danger,"  p.  139,  and 
was  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  dispnted  by  the  Cathohc 
critics,  who  assailed  my  words  as  bitterly  twelve  years 
ago  as  they  do  now. 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

vehemently  maintains.  But  the  tradition  has 
so  overlaid  it,  so  subtly  changed  and  trans- 
formed it — and  according  to  Rome  it  is  tradi- 
tion, or  the  voice  of  the  teaching  Church, 
which  alone  interprets  the  Scriptures— that  in 
practice  the  New  Testament  has  no  authority 
whatever.  If  you  bring  the  faith  and  prac- 
tice of  Rome  into  a  candid  comparison  with 
the  faith  and  practice  of  the  New  Testament 
— i.e.,  with  the  faith  and  practice  of  Christ 
and  His  apostles — you  find  that  the  difference 
amounts  to  a  positive  contrast.  Almost  all 
the  Jewish  and  pagan  ideas  which  the  New 
Testament  repudiated  have  crept  back  again. 
The  practices  which  form  now  the  very  bone 
and  sinew  of  Catholicism  are  not  found  in 
the  New  Testament  at  all.  For  example, 
the  key  to  the  whole  Roman  system  is  the 
supremacy  and  autocracy  of  the  Pope.  But 
Bishop  Strossmayer's  great  protest  at  the 
Vatican  Council  has  never  been  answered  : 
"  Reading,"  he  said,  "  the  sacred  books  with 
that  attention  with  which  the  Lord  has  made 
me  capable,  I  do  not  find  one  single  chapter 
or  one  little  verse  in  which  Jesus  Christ  gives 
to  St.  Peter  the  mastery  over  the  Apostles, 
his  fellow-workers.     If  Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 

134 


What  would  be  the   Result 

had  been  what  we  believe  his  Holiness 
Pius  IX.  to  be  to-day,  it  is  wonderful  that 
He  had  not  said  to  him,  '  When  I  have 
ascended  to  My  Father,  you  shall  obey 
Simon  Peter  as  you  obey  Me.  I  establish 
him  My  Vicar  upon  earth.'  " 

This  is  only  one  instance,  though  it  is  a 
crucial  instance.  The  legend  which  raised 
Mary  from  the  tomb  to  crown  her  as  the 
Queen  of  heaven,  and  make  her  the  inter- 
cessor with  her  Son  for  sinners,  culminat- 
ing in  Pius  IX. 's  dogma  of  1854,  which 
declared  that  she  was,  like  her  Son,  con- 
ceived without  sin,  has  not  a  shred  of 
evidence,  not  even  a  remote  suggestion  of 
probability,  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
whole  secular  process  which  substituted  the 
saints  for  the  deities  of  Polytheism,  and  made 
their  tombs  and  relics  objects  of  veneration, 
is  absolutely  o[)posed  to  every  book,  chapter, 
and  verse  of  the  New  Testament,  in  which 
the  God  and  !•  ather  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  sole  object  of  worship,  and  He  is 
immediately  accessible  to  us  all  by  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus,  and  by  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

The    Mass,    which    is    the    central    act   of 

135 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Catholic  worship,  is  totally  distinct  from  the 
Supper  of  the  New  Testament  writings. 
This  was  a  meal ;  that  is  a  sacrificial  offer- 
ing. This  was  solemnised  without  any 
priestly  operator  ;  that  depends  entirely  on 
the  miraculous  power  of  the  priest  to  change 
the  bread  into  flesh  and  the  wine  into  blood. 
This  was  a  sacrament  of  mutual  love  and 
service,  in  which  the  body  of  Christ  was 
formed  by  the  love  which  serves  one 
another  ;  that  is  an  offering  made  for  the 
people,  in  which  the  cup  is  never  given  to  the 
laity,  but  reserved  entirely  for  the  priests. 

If  a  Catholic  took  a  New  Testament  to 
Mass  instead  of  the  Mass  Book,  if  his  mind 
paid  any  attention  to  the  words  of  the  Lord 
and  the  teaching  of  the  apostles,  he  would 
be  entirely  bewildered,  and  would  either 
declare  the  Mass  a  blasphemous  invention 
or  throw  away  the  New  Testament  as  a 
heretical  book.  No  earthly  ingenuity  can 
reconcile  the  two. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  whole  circle  of 
Catholic  devotions  and  practices.  The  con- 
fessional, the  pilgrimages,  the  cult  of  the 
Sacred  Heart,  the  endless  repetitions  of 
Paternosters — the    very    prayer    which    our 

136 


What   would   be  the   Result 

Lord  gave  His  disciples  to  supersede  the  vain 
repetition  of  a  prayer — the  intermixture  of 
Ave  Marias  with  the  Paternosters,  the  bow- 
ing before  images,  the  use  of  candles  as  an 
act  of  worship,  the  prayers  and  Masses  to 
get  souls  out  of  purgatory— you  look  in  vain 
for  the  sanction  of  these  things  in  the  words 
of  our  Lord  and  His  apostles. 

Thus  Catholicism  represents  a  traditional 
growth,  a  system,  which  in  its  government, 
its  theology,  its  moral  teaching,  its  worship, 
its  ideals,  its  practice,  its  priesthood,  its 
method  of  work,  its  influence  in  the  world, 
affords  an  almost  incredible  contrast  to  the 
book  which  yet,  by  a  strange  inconsistency, 
it  still  calls  inspired  and  authoritative. 

It  is  this  fact  which  obliges  the  Roman 
Church  to  keep  the  Bible  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  people.  It  can  only  allow  the  laity  the 
Bible  in  the  Mass  Book,  the  Bible  under  the 
strict  control  and  interpretation  of  the  priest- 
hood. But  a  Bible  so  chopped  up,  and 
manipulated,  and  made  to  say  what  it  never 
meant  loses  all  interest  and  power,  so  that 
Catholics  have  no  desire  to  use  the  book 
as  their  guide  and  teacher,  their  law-book, 
and  instrument  of  devotion. 

137 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Peter  Rosegger  has  told  us  in  "  Mein 
Himmelreich "  the  amazing  discovery  he 
made  of  Jesus  Christ,  wlien  in  a  three  weeks' 
illness  he  read  the  Gospels  through  and 
through.  He  found  Jesus,  as  the  Church 
had  never  presented  Him.  With  the  dis- 
covery of  the  living  Lord,  the  supersti- 
tions and  usurped  authority  of  the  Roman 
Church  fell  away.  The  Roman  Church  can 
no  more  stand  with  a  free  and  general  use 
of  the  Bible  among  the  laity  than  the  moths 
can  proceed  with  their  work  of  demolition 
in  the  wardrobe  if  the  air  and  sunlight  are 
freely  admitted.  In  self-preservation  Rome 
withholds  the  Bible.  The  domination  of 
Rome  in  England,  therefore,  would  involve 
negatively  the  loss  of  liberty,  and  positively 
the  loss  of  the  religion  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. What  that  would  mean  for  England 
every  one  can  see  who  begins  to  reckon  up 
how  all  our  liberties,  political  and  religious, 
all  our  progress,  all  our  philanthropies,  are 
bound  up  with  the  gospel  of  grace  as  it 
is  found  in  the  New  Testament.  John 
Bunyan,  John  Wesley,  John  Howard,  Wil- 
berforce,  Livingstone,  Bright,  the  great 
Englishmen    who    have    made    our    country 

138 


What  would  be  the   Result 

what  it  is,  are  almost  without  exception  the 
product  of  that  personal,  spiritual,  and 
scriptural  religion  which  Rome  would 
sweep  away  in  the  interests  of  her  usurped 
authority. 

Rome  would,  if  she  once  gained  the 
power,  coerce  us  into  obedience,  and  that 
obedience  would  mean  the  loss  of  our 
Saviour  as  the  immediate  redeemer  from 
sin,  as  the  guide  and  companion  of  our  life, 
as  the  hope  of  glory  in  the  hour  of  death  and 
in  the  day  of  judgment.  The  system  which 
she  would  enforce  in  place  of  this  free  and 
ever-living  gospel,  taught  by  the  Lord  and 
His  apostles  in  the  New  Testament,  is  a 
corrupt  and  obscurantist  religion,  only 
nominally  Christian,  the  main  object  of 
which  is  to  bring  the  individual  soul  into 
subjection  to  a  human  priest,  and  the  world 
as  a  whole  under  the  domination  of  an  auto- 
crat who  claims  to  be  God  upon  earth. 

Political  ruin  and  spiritual  death  are  the 
doom  which  awaits  the  triumph  of  Rome  in 
England.  Is  there  any  fear  of  this  result? 
Certainly  there  is.  The  system  is  so 
specious,  so  skilful  in  hiding  its  real  nature, 
and  in  using  its  pieties  and  saints  as  the  lever 

139 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

to  bring  the  mind  into  subjection  ;  it  is  so 
completely  free  from  moral  scruple  in  its 
designs  ;  it  has  such  boundless  wealth  at  its 
disposal,  and  such  skill  in  capturing  the 
nobility,  the  landlords,  the  leaders  of  society  ; 
it  grips  the  Press  with  so  firm  a  hand,  and 
has  so  many  ways  of  assassinating  incon- 
venient critics,  that  it  is  blind  presumption 
to  rest  at  ease  in  the  assurance  that  England 
is  necessarily  and  finally  Protestant. 

The  price  of  liberty  is  eternal  vigilance  ; 
the  price  of  keeping  the  gospel  is  to  live 
it.  And  some  are  so  busy  with  other  things, 
and  many  are  so  cold  and  dead  in  their 
spiritual  life,  that  Rome  has  stolen  many 
marches  upon  us,  and  holds  a  power  in 
England  to-day  such  as  she  has  never  done 
before   since   the   Reformation. 

You  may  be  sure  that  she  will  not  relax 
her  efforts,  for  her  one  hope  of  survival  is 
in  the  English-speaking  race.  We  have 
sprung  to  the  head  of  the  world's  progress 
by  escaping  her  bondage.  Now,  as  her 
power  decays  in  the  countries  which  she  has 
ruined,  she  must  spare  no  effort,  no  sacri- 
fice, to  recapture  England.  The  stream  of 
converts    who,    blinded    and    deluded,    are 

140 


What  would   be  the   Result 

lured  into  her  fold  give  her  high  hopes  of 
success. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  if  England  knew, 
if  we  understood  the  nature  of  the  Curia 
which  governs  the  Church,  if  we  understood 
the  working  of  Romanism  in  Spain,  Belgium, 
South  America,  we  should  be  perfectly 
secure.  But  the  bulk  of  our  people  do  not 
know.  The  Roman  Church,  adapted  for 
England  and  skilfully  presented  to  us  by 
our  own  apostate  sons,  is  plausible  and 
attractive.  Its  claim  to  be  the  Church 
sounds  wonderfully  serene  and  reassuring  ; 
its  promise  to  relieve  us  of  all  the  strife 
of  thought  and  the  search  for  truth  appeals 
to  agnostics  and  roues  and  sentimentalists. 
Our  people  do  not  know,  and  now  that  Rome 
grips  our  Press  it  is  increasingly  difficult 
to  enlighten  them.  We  have  no  guarantee 
against  the  decadence  into  which  nations, 
like  men,  are  apt  to  fall.-  Rome  profits  by 
the  decadence  of  some  nations,  as  she  pro- 
duces  the   decadence   of   others. 

And  yet  in  my  heart  I  do  not  believe 
Rome  will  capture  England.  I  am  per- 
suaded that  this  country  is  not  "  Mary's 
dower,"    as   Catholics   call    it,    ])ut    Christ's. 

»4i 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

I  take  a  broader  view,  and  see  how  surely 
and  inevitably  the  Roman  system  is  hasten- 
ing to  its  ruin.  In  the  fine  image  of  the 
Rev.  A.  Faulkes  :  » 

"  The  Papacy  is,  and  will  be  for  long, 
a  force  in  politics.  It  can  command  votes, 
it  can  effect  combinations  ;  it  impresses  the 
imagination,  it  bulks  large  before  the  world. 
But  it  is  a  declining  power.  The  stars  in 
their  courses  fight  against  it ;  the  forces 
which  are  making  history  are  on  the  other 
side.  Silently  and  ceaselessly  they  work. 
Like  a  majestic  iceberg,  detached  from  some 
arctic  continent,  it  moves  southward  from 
the  polar  ocean,  a  fragment  of  a  dead  world. 
Ghostlike,  a  peril  to  mariners,  it  towers  over 
the  waters  that  wash  its  base ;  its  peaks 
glitter  in  the  sunlight ;  its  cliffs  reflect  the 
blue  of  sky  and  sea.  And  all  the  while  the 
process  of  undermining  is  going  on  ;  the 
frozen  mass  encounters  kindlier  currents ; 
the  temperature  rises ;  a  little  sooner,  a 
little  later  maybe,  there  can  be  but  one 
end." 

I  cannot  seriously  believe  that  this  effete 

'  Article    on    "  Modernism "    in    Hibberl    Journal^ 
October,  1909. 

J  42 


What  would  be  the   Result 

and  tyrannical  power,  decaying  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  will  ever  conquer  the  land 
I  love.  England's  great  traditions  are  of 
Liberty  and  Religion. 

"  It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  that  the  flood 

Of  British  freedom,  which,  to  the  open  sea 
Of  the  world's  praise,  from  dark  antiquity 

Hath  flowed,  *  with  pomp  of  waters,  unwithstood,' 

Roused  though  it  be  full  often  to  a  mood 
Which  spurns  the  check  of  salutary  bands — 
That  this  most  famous  stream,  in  bogs  and  sands 

Should  perish  ;  and  to  evil  and  to  good 
Be  lost  for  ever.     In  our  halls  is  hung 

Armoury  of  the  invincible  knights  of  old  ; 

We  must  be  free  or  die  who   speak  the  tongue, 

That  Shakespere  spoke,  the  faith  and  morals  hold 
That  Milton  held.     In  everything  we  are  sprung 

Of  earth's  first  blood,  have  titles  manifold." 


143 


CHAPTER    VI 

AN    APPEAL    TO    FACTS 

In  the  previous  chapter  a  picture  is  drawn 
of  what  the  results  would  be  if  Rome  were 
to  capture  England.  No  careful  and  candid 
reader  can  deny  that,  according  to  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down,  those  results  would  be 
calamitous — terrible.  Our  liberty  would  be 
destroyed  —  liberty  intellectual,  political, 
moral,  spiritual.  That  is  the  truth  that  stares 
us  in  the  face  as  we  read  the  chapter.  And 
when  liberty  is  gone  manhood  is  gone, 
strength  is  gone,  enterprise  is  gone.  A 
nation  enslaved  is  a  nation  dead.  Rome 
destroys    liberty,   therefore   Rome   kills. 

But  some  one  will  perhaps  say  :  "  This 
is  the  reasoning  of  one  who  loves  Protes- 
tantism and  does  not  love  Popery,  and  be- 
cause of  it  he  sees  through  the  eyes  of  a 
Protestant,  and  draws  his  conclusions 
accordingly.      Are  we  sure  that  Romanism 

144 


An  Appeal  to   Facts 

means  this  to  any  land  where  that  Church 
obtains  power?  And  if  it  does  mean  such 
terrible  results,   why?" 

The  true  way  to  answer  such  a  question 
is  to  appeal  to  facts,  and  there  is  one  fact 
that  stands  out  very  boldly  which  should  be 
urged  upon  all  true  patriots.  It  is  hinted 
at  in  the  second  chapter  of  this  volume, 
but  it  should  be  burnt  into  the  heart  and 
conscience  of  every  politician,  every  man  of 
commerce — indeed,  of  every  dweller  on  these 
isles.  It  is  this  :  Wherever  Protestantism 
has  become  a  vital  principle  in  the  life  of 
a  nation,  that  nation  has  sprung  into  power 
intellectually,  commercially,  morally,  spiritu- 
ally. On  the  other  hand,  into  every  country 
which  did  not  lay  hold  of  the  great  Refor- 
mation truths,  and  where  Romanism  has 
reigned  supreme,  torpor,  weakness,  and 
decay  have  come.  This  is  no  mere  state- 
ment of  one  who  sees  through  the  eyes  of 
a  partisan  ;  it  is  a  great  fact  which  faces 
any  thoughtful  observer.  Every  nation 
which  has  remained  under  the  subjection  of 
Rome,  every  nation  which  has  taken  her 
orders  from  the  Vatican,  has  become  de^ 
cadent.      Every   Protestant   country,   on  the 

145  L 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

other  hand,  has  grown  from  strength  to 
strength. 

This  is  surely  a  fact  which  should  be 
examined  and  pressed  home,  for  in  spite 
of  our  vaunted  education,  it  is  but  little 
realised.  "  I  don't  care  a  fig  what  kind  of 
religion  the  people  believe  in,"  said  a  com- 
mercial man  to  me  once  ;  "  religion  does 
not  affect  business."  The  man  was  blind 
to  the  truth,  or  he  would  not  have  made 
such  a  foolish  statement.  Religion  goes 
down  to  the  roots  of  life.  Religion  affects 
every  phase  of  our  manifold  life. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  consideration  of  our 
own  land.  Naturally,  we  are  proud  of  it. 
To-day  I  was  looking  at  a  large  globe  on 
which  was  traced  the  map  of  the  world.  It 
took  me  some  little  time  to  find  the  British 
Isles,  so  small  a  space  do  they  occupy.  And 
yet  these  little  isles  control  at  least  a  fourth 
of  the  whole  world.  Our  commerce  has 
practically  gone  to  every  land,  our  ships  sail 
on  every  sea,  our  language  is  more  and  more 
prevailing,  our  power  is  felt  everywhere.  It 
seemed,  as  I  looked  at  the  map,  absurd  that 
our  little  islands  should  dominate  such  a 
large  portion  of  the  world.     But  when  did 

146 


An  Appeal  to  Facts 

this  mighty  power  begin  to  be?  Any  his- 
torian will  tell  you.  Up  to  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII.  we  were  practically  a  stagnant 
nation,  and  counted  but  little  in  the  councils 
of  the  world.  Our  population  had  grown 
but  little  in  a  thousand  years.  The  people 
were,  in  the  main,  boorish  and  unlettered. 
We  were  ruled  by  priests,  we  were  governed 
from  Rome.  But  the  life-blood  of  God's 
truth,  which  began  to  be  known  in  the  time 
of  WyclifTe,  began  more  and  more  to  fill  the 
veins  of  the  nation  at  the  Reformation  ;  and 
when,  towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, we  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Rome  we 
sprung  into  power.  No  sooner  was  the  great 
Armada  destroyed  than  we  breathed  a  new 
atmosphere,  and  marched  onward  to  a 
greater  and  still  greater   life. 

It  is  true  there  was  a  check  to  that  onward 
march  towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  But  why?  England  was  governed 
by  Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  who  tried  to 
drag  the  country  back  to  Rome.  It  was  then 
that  wc  practically  became  a  vassal  State, 
governed,  in  the  main,  by  Louis  XIV^  ;  it 
was  then  that  our  liberties  were  slipping  from 
us.     The  seven  bishops  who  stood  for  frce- 

147 


Shall  Rome  Reconquer  England 

dom  were  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  of 
London,  Claverhouse  did  his  bloody  deeds  in 
Scotland,  while  a  reign  of  terror  under  Judge 
Jeffreys  blackened  the  life  of  the  South 
of  England.  But  no  sooner  did  William  of 
Orange,  pledged  to  maintain  our  Protestant 
liberties,  become  our  king  than  our  upward 
march  was  resumed. 

While  England  was  under  Rome,  she  was 
little  and  unknown  in  the  great  life  of  the 
world  ;  but  when  she  had  cast  off  Rome, 
her  greatness  commenced. 

But  there  is  another  fact  we  must  con- 
sider. What  is  the  one  part  of  our  British 
Isles  that  cannot  record  progress,  but  rather 
tells  of  depopulation,  discontent,  decay? 
Ireland.  Yet  why  should  it  be  so?  The 
Irish  are  naturally  a  kind,  sunny-hearted, 
witty  people.  They  live  in  a  beautiful,  fertile 
country.  Why,  then,  should  Ireland  alone 
tell  of  depopulation,  chronic  poverty,  ignor- 
ance, and  want  of  progress?  Why  should 
Ireland  be  the  open  sore  of  British  politics? 
In  Michael  McCarthy's  book  "  Priests  and 
People  in  Ireland "  we  learn  the  reason. 
Here  was  an  educated  Roman  Catholic,  here 
was  a  man  who  loved  his  country   who  ex- 

148 


An  Appeal  to  Facts 

plained  the  reason.  All  through  the  book 
he  shows  that  Rome,  that  priestcraft,  para- 
lysed the  nerves  and  dried  up  the  lifeblood 
of  the  people. 

For  we  have  to  remember  that  not  all 
Ireland  is  poverty-stricken  or  unprogressive. 
It  is  only  in  the  Catholic  South  of  Ireland 
where  this  obtains,  for  in  the  Protestant 
North  of  Ireland,  where  the  people  scorn 
the  claims  of  Rome,  you  have  progress, 
education,  and  prosperity. 

More  than  three  hundred  years  ago  the 

great  power  of  Europe  was  Spain.     She  was 

the  great  colonising  nation  of  the  world.  She 

had  grasped  the  riches  of  the  New  World. 

Iler  Emperor  reigned  over  a  great  part  of 

Europe.      She   was   the   Roman   Empire   of 

the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.     When 

Luther    began    his   work,    his   great   enemy, 

next  to  Rome  itself,  v/as  Spain.     Charles  V. 

was  his  chief  judge  at  the  Diet  of  Worms. 

Spain  was  then,  as  she  is  to-day,  the  most 

Catholic   nation    in   Europe.      It   was   Spain 

who    delighted    in    crushing    out    Protestant 

heresy.      Ferdinand   and    Isabella   loved   to 

hear   heretics   of  every  sort,   Jew,    Moslem, 

and  doubting  Catholic,  shrieking  in  agony. 

149 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

It  was  Philip  II.  who  sought  by  his 
Invincible  Armada  to  drive  Protestantism  out 
of  England.  It  was  largely  through  Spain's 
influence  that  England  became  a  great 
charnel-house  during  the  reign  of  Mary. 
Spain,  I  say,  was  and  is  largely  Roman 
Catholic.  She  held  fast  to  the  superstitions 
of  Rome,  she  abhorred  every  form  of 
religious  liberty,  she  shut  her  eyes  to  the 
light  of  God,  she  obeyed  the  Church. 

Well,  what  has  been  the  result?  Year 
by  year,  decade  by  decade,  century  by  cen- 
tury Spain  has  decayed.  She  would  not 
have  the  truth  that  belonged  to  her  peace, 
and  lo  her  house  is  left  unto  her  desolate. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  of  Europe  to- 
day sadder  than  the  condition  of  Spain. 
She  is  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  Pier 
people  are  ignorant,  corruption  oozes  from 
every  pore  of  that  once  great  people.  Cities 
which  were  once  great  and  mighty  have 
bticome  squalid  villages.  Cordova,  which  in 
the  time  of  Ferdinand  had  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  people,  is  now  practically  de- 
populated. Instead  of  being  a  great  city 
having  more  than  half  a  million  population, 
she  has  only  55,000  people,  of  whom  600 

150 


An   Appeal   to   Facts 

are  priests,  and  she  is  on  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. 

But  Spain  is  Catholic.  Some  years  ago 
a  calculation  was  made  as  to  the  value  of 
the  wax  and  incense  burned  in  the  Spanish 
churches  in  the  course  of  a  year.  It  reached 
the  sum  of  £1,500,000,  or  very  little  less 
than  is  spent  in  education  I  As  a  conse- 
quence while  priests  abound,  many  of  v/hom 
live  in  luxury,  the  schoolmaster  has  to  be 
content  with  £20  a  year.  Education  laws 
are  not  enforced  by  a  corrupt  Government. 
Commerce  is  practically  at  a  standstill,  while 
justice  is  a  far-off  dream.  And  more,  there 
is  no  candid  student  of  Spain  but  will 
admit  that,  lying  at  the  very  heart  of  Spain, 
causing  all  her  ignorance,  her  decay,  her 
ruin,  arc  a  corrupt  priesthood,  a  corrupt 
Church  I  Let  such  a  Reformation  come  to 
Spain  as  came  to  Germany  in  the  third 
decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  Spain 
would   be   born  anew. 

If  one  wishes  proof  of  this,  he  can  do 
no  better  than  read  Joseph  McCabe's  little 
book  on  the  "  Martyrdom  of  Ferrer."  It 
is  written  in  a  careful,  impartial  spirit  ;  it  is 
written   by  a  man   who   knows   the   Roman 

151 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer   England 

Church  thoroughly  and  was  for  years  a 
priest  within  her  borders,  and  it  shows  with 
merciless  logic  the  effect  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  Spain.  It  is  decadent,  nay, 
almost  a  ruined  nation,  and  the  Roman 
Church  lies  at  the  heart  of  its  ruin. 

Then  consider  Italy,  the  home  of  the 
Vatican.  Up  to  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  Italy  was  under  the  dominion  of 
the  Papacy,  and  up  to  that  time  Italy  was 
weak,  disorganised,  invertebrate.  It  was 
divided  into  a  number  of  little  kingdoms, 
which  were  the  prey  of  the  invader.  Rome 
was  the  centre  of  one  of  these  kingdoms, 
over  which  the  Pope  ruled,  and  Rome  was 
one  of  the  most  corrupt  States  in  Europe. 
Patriots  and  poets  dreamed  of  a  noble  Italy, 
a  freer  Italy,  an  united  Italy.  Their  great 
enemy  was  the  Church.  The  Pope  would 
hav^  none  of  Mazzini's  cry  of  a  Free  Church 
in  a  Free  State.  Then  at  last  the  dreams  of 
the  patriots  and  the  poets  took  practical 
shape.  Garibaldi  made  his  appeal  to  young 
Italy,  and  Italy  became  free,  Italy  became 
united.  For  years  liberty-loving  Italians 
fought  for  the  freedom  of  their  land,  their 
great  enemy  being  the  Papacy.     Until  1870 

152 


An  Appeal  to   Facts 

the  Pope  kept  them  out  of  Rome  by  the 
aid  of  French  soldiers.  Then,  owing  to  the 
war  between  Germany  and  France,  those 
soldiers  were  withdrawn,  and  the  whole  of 
Italy  became  free.  Italy  threw  off  the 
Papacy,  Italy  determined  to  live  her  own 
life.  The  Pope  raved,  and  the  Church 
poured  forth  its  curses,  but  the  people  held 
to  their  freedom.  With  what  result?  Italy 
has  been  reborn.  No  sooner  did  the  country 
free  herself  from  the  Vatican  than  a  new  and 
better  era  commenced. 

I  need  not  tell  the  story  of  Holland,  and 
Norway,  and  Denmark,  and  Sweden.  All 
the  world  knows  that  as  soon  as  they  threw 
off  the  yoke  of  Rome,  and  became  Pro- 
testant, they  immediately  sprang  into  pro- 
minence in  the  councils  of  Europe,  and  that 
in  spite  of  great  difficulties  they  have  main- 
tained their  place  among  the  progressive 
peoples,  and  have  been  among  the  healthiest 
forces  in  our  modern  civilisation. 

I  imagine  that  many  who  read  this  have 
been  to  Switzerland,  but  I  wonder  whether 
they  have  considered  why  some  parts  of 
Switzerland  are  so  much  more  clean,  and 
prosperous,  and  godly  than  others.     Those 

•53 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

who  know  this  httle  country  thoroughly,  and 
who  have  studied  its  Hfe  carefully,  tell  us 
that  one  could  almost  draw  a  line  without  the 
aid  of  a  map  where  the  Protestant  cantons 
end  and  where  the  Roman  Catholic  cantons 
begin.  In  the  former  you  have  cleanliness, 
contentment,  prosperity,  and  godliness,  while 
in  the  latter  you  have  dirt,  squalor,  and 
poverty. 

And  this  on  a  small  scale  suggests  the 
relative  conditions  of  North  and  South 
America.  As  all  the  world  knows,  the  North 
of  America  was  in  the  main  colonised  by 
England,  a  Protestant  country,  while  the 
South  was  colonised  by  Spain.  All  the 
world  knows  too  how  great  the  North  of 
America  has  become,  so  great  that  every 
visitor  is  amazed  at  her  mighty  cities,  her 
vast  industries,  her  almost  countless  in- 
habitants. But  the  progress  of  the  North 
has  not  extended  to  the  South,  There  you 
have  corruption  of  the  worst  nature ;  you 
have  instability  of  government ;  you  have 
an  ignorant,  stagnant,  oppressed,  degraded 
population.  Repeatedly  in  talking  with 
those  who  have  travelled  and  lived  in  those 
southern  republics   I  have  heard  the  same 

154 


An  Appeal  to  Facts 

story  :  the  priest,  the  Church  is  the  enemy 
of  the  people. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  condition  of 
Portugal,  and  Poland,  and  similar  countries, 
neither  need  I  dwell  on  the  contrast  between 
Germany  and  Austria,  for  the  description 
I  have  given  of  other  countries  applies  to 
them.  Protestantism,  the  breath  of  liberty, 
means  intellectual,  commercial,  moral,  and 
spiritual  advancement,  while  Romanism 
means   decay  and  death. 

The  only  country  dominated  by  Catholic 
influence,  and  which  yet  is  materially  pros- 
perous and  progressive,  is  Belgium,  but  even 
there  you  have  a  life  altogether  inferior  to 
that  of  Holland  ;  neither  can  we  forget  that 
under  the  late  King  and  Government  of 
Belgium  the  great  crime  of  the  Congo  has 
been  committed.  And  this  also  we  must 
remember.  While  every  Protestant  Church 
condemned  the  Congo  atrocities,  and  exerted 
its  influence  on  behalf  of  those  who  were 
so  devilishly  treated,  tlie  Roman  Catholic 
Church  as  a  Churcli  was  silent,  shamefully 
silent,  criminally  silent. 

What  inference,  then,  are  we  to  draw  from 
these  things?     In  the  previous  chapter  it  is 

155 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer   England 

urged  that  if  Rome  succeeded  in  conquering 
England,  it  would  mean  the  destruction  of 
Protestant  principles,  the  principles  of  intel- 
lectual and  political  and  spiritual  liberty. 
And,  furthermore,  it  would  mean,  as  a 
natural  result  of  this,  the  decay  and  ruin  of 
our  land. 

This  is  not  mere  supposition.  It  is  not 
a  flight  of  the  imagination.  The  facts  of 
history  support  it  up  to  the  very  hilt.  Let 
Rome  conquer  our  country  and  we  may  write 
Ichabod  upon  nearly  all  that  is  best  in  our 
national  life. 

In  a  report  of  a  speech,  under  the 
auspices  of  "  The  Ransom  Guild  for  the 
Conversion  of  England,"  by  Mr.  G.  E. 
Anstruther,  the  Secretary  of  the  Guild,  and 
reported  in  the  Catholic  Times,  February  17, 
1905,  I  find  the  following  sentence  :  "  Pro- 
testantism against  rationalism  is  powerless, 
Catholicism  against  rationalism  is  all- 
powerful."  This  statement  was  followed  by 
loud  cheers  on  the  part  of  the  audience. 
I  rubbed  my  eyes  as  I  read  it.  It  evidently 
appealed  to  this  Roman  Catholic  audience ; 
but  how  far  is  it  true?  Again  one  has  to 
appeal    to    facts.      How    far    is    Romanism 

156 


An  Appeal  to  Facts 

powerful  against  rationalism?  If  history  is 
not  a  figment  of  the  imagination,  and  if  the 
facts  of  life  are  not  utterly  worthless,  they 
prove  that  Rome  is  one  of  the  great  causes 
of  rationalism,  in  so  far  as  rationalism 
means  agnosticism  and  atheism. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  case  of  France. 
Time  was  when  France  was  regarded  as 
among  the  most  faithful  and  dutiful 
daughters  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Pro- 
testantism was  driven  from  France  by  fire  and 
sword.  The  Huguenots  were  not  allowed 
to  live  there  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  The 
King's  favourite  mistress,  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon,  under  the  influence  of  a  Jesuit  priest, 
persuaded  the  King  to  destroy  the  Edict  of 
Nantes,  and  thereby  made  it  impossible  for 
a  Protestant  to  live  in  that  country.  If  any 
one  wishes  a  popular,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  faithful,  picture  of  this  epoch,  let  him  read 
"  The  Refugees,"  by  Sir  A,  Conan  Doyle, 
who  was  himself  educated  a  Romanist.  He 
enforces  what  every  historian  teaches,  that 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  Protestantism 
was  destroyed  by  persecution.  From  that 
time  Romanism  reigned  supreme.  With 
what   result?      France   is  an   atheist   nation. 

IS7 


Shall    Rome   Reconquer   England 

"  Romanism  all  powerful  against  rational- 
ism "  1  France  teaches  that  Rome  has 
driven  the  nation  to  atheism.  Out  of  a 
population  of  less  than  40,000,000  more 
than  30,000,000  are  professed  atheists. 
Indeed,  during  the  last  few  years  France  has 
by  Act  of  Parliament  thrown  off  the  last 
vestige  of  Roman  power. 

Belgium,  although  in  a  less  degree,  tells 
the  same  story,  while  Italy,  the  home  of 
the  Vatican,  has  not  only  robbed  the  Church 
of  almost  every  shred  of  her  former  power, 
but  she  is  ceasing  to  be  a  believing  people. 

It  has  been  said  again  and  again  that 
the  most  Catholic  nation  in  Europe  to-day 
is  Spain,  and  it  is  the  most  moribund,  the 
most  degraded,  with  the  exceptions,  perhaps, 
of  Turkey  and  Russia.  But  what  effect  has 
the  Roman  Church  had  on  Spain?  In  the 
main  the  effect  may  be  seen  in  two  ways. 
A  part  of  the  people  are  believing,  they  obey 
the  Church,  they  are  the  slaves  of  the  priest, 
and  they  are  the  most  backward  of  the 
civilised  peoples  of  the  world.  These  are 
the  faithful  of  Spain.  They  are  not  tinged 
with  heresy,  they  obey  the  mandates  of  the 
Church  without   question,   and  as   a  conse- 

158 


An  Appeal  to   Facts 

quence  the  hand  of  death  is  upon  them. 
But  there  is  another  class  in  Spain  which 
is  rapidly  increasing.  In  this  class  are  the 
rationalists,  the  anti-clericals  of  Spain.  Mr. 
Isaacson,  in  his  "  Rome  in  Many  Lands," 
quotes  an  orthodox  Spanish  paper,  entitled 
El  Cor  res  Espahol.  This  paper  states  that 
only  1,500,000  men  and  3,500,000  women 
obey  the  clergy  of  Spain.  The  population 
of  Spain  is  about  18,000,000,  and  the  re- 
maining adult  portion  of  the  population  is 
in  the  main  rationalist,  although  many  of 
them  outwardly  conform  to  the  Churches. 
What  and  who  has  made  them  anti-clericals, 
and  often  unbelievers  ?  The  Church  which 
has  oppressed  them. 

It  is  true  that  vast  numbers  of  them  dare 
not  avow  their  atheism,  because  the  Church 
controls  by  its  wealth  and  its  influence  prac- 
tically all  the  public  nfficcs  of  Spain,  but 
the  atheism  exists.  Mr.  McCabe  says  that 
of  forty  books  that  the  educated  Catholic 
reads  to-day  thirty-flve  of  them  arc 
rationalistic. 

Rome  has  killed,  and  is  killing,  faith  by 
urging  the  nations  to  believe  what  the  first 
gleam  of  intelligence  shows  them  to  be  mere 

159 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

idle  tales  and  childish  superstition.  How 
can  the  intelligent  Spaniard  believe  in  a 
religion  which  offers  pardons  of  sins  for  sale, 
even  as  they  were  offered  by  Tetzel  in  the 
time  of  Luther?  How  can  he  regard  Chris- 
tianity as  a  religion  of  purity  when  the 
Church  of  the  nation  which  represents  that 
religion  is  corrupt  to  the  core?  How  can 
the  Catholic  Church  hold  men  to  faith  when 
it  is  for  ever  struggling  to  keep  the  people 
in  darkness?  The  Census  of  1903  in  Spain 
returned  1 1,945,971  as  entirely  illiterate  out 
of  a  population  of   17,667,256. 

Why  did  the  Church  use  its  influence  to 
murder  Ferrer?  Was  it  for  any  crime  he 
committed?  Was  it  because  he  was  cruel 
or  base?  Did  he  hate  his  country?  The 
sum  and  substance  of  his  crime,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  was  that  he  hated  the  darkness 
in  which  the  Church  caused  the  poor 
Spaniards  to  live,  and  that  he  sought  by 
his  schools  to  let  the  light  of  knowledge 
and  truth  shine  into  their  lives. 

What  wonder  that  the  people  are  learn- 
ing to  hate  the  Church  ?  What  wonder,  too, 
that  they,  believing  that  the  Church  is  the 
representative  of  religion,  have  turned  their 


An   Appeal  to  Facts 

backs  upon  faith,  and  have  become 
rationalists,  agnostics,  atheists? 

This,  then,  is  another  result  of  Rome. 
Those  who  obey  its  priests  become  intel- 
lectual slaves,  while  others,  abhorring  that 
slavery,  drift  into  godlessness  and  atheism. 
This  is  the  story  of  Roman  Catholic  coun- 
tries, writ  large  on  the  pages  of  their 
history. 

There  is  another  fact  also  to  be  borne  in 
mind.  If  a  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits,  what 
are  we  to  say  of  the  moral  results  of 
Romanism?  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  as  it 
was  stated  in  many  English  newspapers  some 
years  ago,  that  although  Romanists  form 
only  about  one  in  sixteen  of  the  population 
in  Great  Britain,  they  form  one  in  four  of 
the  criminal  classes  of  our  land.'  It  is, 
moreover,  a  well-known  fact  that  Roman 
Catholic  countries  stand  on  a  far  lower 
plane  of  morality  than  Protestant  countries. 
Wherever  Roman  Catholicism  holds  undis- 
puted sway  there  is  corruption  in  the  State 
and  a  low  standard  of  morality  among  the 
people.  And  what  is  our  of  the  causes  of 
this?     In  this  connection  I  cannot,  perhaps, 

'  The  Tnhlct,  February  12,  1898. 

161  M 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

do  better  than  quote  from  Mr.  McCabe's 
"  Martyrdom  of  Ferrer,"  to  which  I  have 
referred.     He  says  : 

**  I  need  not  linger  over  the  morality  of 
the  Spanish  clergy.  As  an  ex-priest,  I  have 
always  refused  to  create  prejudice  against 
my  late  co-religionists  by  discussing  this  side 
of  their  affairs.  .  .  .  There  is  immorality 
enough  even  among  priests  in  this  country. 
Sordid  cases  came  to  my  personal  know- 
ledge. In  Belgium  the  condition — a  condi- 
tion that  any  candid  person  will  expect  from 
an  enforced  celibacy  and  good  living — is  far 
worse.  In  Spain  and  the  South  of  Italy 
it  is  flagrant,  nor  is  it  confined  to  the  lower 
clergy  and  the  monks.  A  writer  in  the 
Church  Quarterly  (October,  1902)  relates 
how  an  Italian  prelate  calmly  discussed  with 
him  the  fact,  which  he  neither  resented  nor 
denied,  that  one  of  the  candidates  for  the 
papal  throne,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
cardinals  in  the  Church,  was  a  man  of  '  con- 
spicuous immorality.'  The  cardinal  in  ques- 
tion, whose  life  was  described  to  me  in 
Rome,  kept  a  mistress  in  a  villa  not  many 
miles  from  the  Vatican.  .  .  .  From  time  im- 
memorial in  the  Latin  countries  the  clergy 

162 


An  Appeal  to   Facts 

have  withheld  their  strictures  on  the  conduct 
of  their  followers,  and  the  greatest  laxity  pre- 
vails. ...  It  is  a  foolish  superstition,  en- 
couraged by  Catholics,  that  the  laxity  of  the 
Latin  races  is  a  matter  of  temperature.  The 
Northern  races  were  just  as  bad  before  the 
Reformation.  The  notorious  laxity  is  due 
solely  to  the  fact  that  an  immoral  clergy 
never  dared  to  press  on  the  people  their 
theoretic  gospel   of  chastity." 

•What  would  be  the  result  if  Rome  were 
to  capture  England  ?  Surely  the  facts  ad- 
duced bear  out  the  picture  drawn  in  the 
previous  chapter.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
theory,  it  is  a  matter  of  fact,  as  the  story  of 
the  nations  testifies. 

For  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  the  final 
analysis  religion  is  the  great  working  force 
of  life.  No  people,  no  nation  can  long  live 
without  a  religion.  It  is  deep-seated  in  the 
very  life  of  man.  And  more,  in  a  deep, 
vital  sense,  a  people,  a  nation,  is  governed 
by  its  religion.  Unconsciously  the  thoughts, 
the  ideals,  the  aspirations  ot  nny  community 
are  coloured,  shaped,  and  moulded  by  the 
prevailing  religion.  A  false  conception  of 
God,  a  false  conception  of  man's  relations 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

to  God  means  a  false  life,  a  false  character. 
A  true  religion  means  true  men,  an  uplifted 
community.  A  religion  impregnated  with 
lies  is  bound  to  produce  disastrous  results. 
Only  the  truth  finally  uplifts  life.  If  the 
Church  of  Rome  has  through  the  ages  up- 
lifted men,  it  is  because  of  the  eternal  truth 
which  is  embedded  in  it.  If  the  Church  has 
done  harm,  it  is  because  of  the  lies  which 
fester  at  its  heart.  No  lie  can  produce  good, 
only  the  truth  can  do  that,  and  perhaps  one 
of  the  great  reasons  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
has  produced  such  fearful  results  in  every 
land  where  she  has  reigned  supreme  is 
because  a  lie  nestles  in  its  very  heart. 

There  are  two  terms  v/hich  are  often  con- 
fused, "  the  Papacy,"  and  "  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church."  In  a  sense  they  are  one, 
in  another  sense  they  are  two.  The  Roman 
Church  is  the  visible,  organised  body  seen 
throughout  Christendom.  The  Papacy  is  the 
force  which  governs  and  controls  the  Church. 
It  is  centred  in  the  Vatican  ;  it  claims  to  be 
the  Word  of  God,  life  of  God.  Every  Roman 
Church  in  every  land  obeys  the  Papacy.  It 
is  from  the  Vatican  it  receives  its  orders,  it 
is  to  the  Vatican  that  it  looks  for  guidance. 

164 


An  Appeal   to   Facts 

The  dictum  of  the  Papacy  is  final,  because 
it  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  whole  organisation. 

And  here  is  the  fact.  At  the  very  heart 
of  the  Papacy  is  a  forgery,  a  lie.  It  depends 
upon  that  forgery,  that  lie.  The  Clementine 
homilies,  and  the  Isidorial  decretals,  on 
which  for  centuries  the  Papacy  rested  for 
its  authority,  have  been  proved  to  be  mere 
fabrication,  and  every  scholar  and  historian 
regards  them  as  forgeries,  having  no  founda- 
tion in  truth. 

In  confirmation  of  this  statement,  I  cannot 
do  better  than  refer  my  readers  to  Hallam's 
"  Middle  Ages,"  especially  as  Hallam  is  uni- 
versally accepted  as  one  of  the  most  careful 
and  impartial  of  our  historians.  In  this  work, 
vol.  ii.  chap.  vii.  part  i.,  the  historian  deals 
extensively  with  the  question  of  Papal 
Supremacy,  and  he  tells  us  that  there 
appeared  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  century, 
under  the  name  of  one  Isidore,  an  unknown 
person,  a  collection  of  ecclesiastical  canons, 
now  commonly  denominated  the  False  De- 
cretals. These  purported  to  be  decrees  of 
the  early  Bishops  of  Rome,  and  which  went 
to  establish  an  appellant  jurisdiction  of  the 
Roman    See    in    all    causes.       The    writer 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

suggests  that  these  decretals  were  probably 
forged  by  some  bishop  in  jealousy  or  resent- 
ment. Be  that  as  it  may,  these  forgeries 
were  accepted  by  a  so-called  infallible 
Church,  and  not  only  accepted,  but  acted 
upon.  Hallam  says,  vol.  ii.  p.  167  :  "  Upon 
these  spurious  decretals  was  built  the  great 
fabric  of  Papal  supremacy  over  the  different 
national  Churches  ;  a  fabric  which  has  stood 
after  its  foundations  crumbled  beneath  it, 
for  no  one  has  pretended  to  deny  for  the 
last  two  centuries  that  the  imposture  is  too 
palpable  for  any  but  the  most  ignorant  ages 
to  credit.'' 

Thus  the  boasted  authority  of  the  Papacy 
has  no  other  support  than  a  forgery.  A 
lie  lies  at  the  very  heart  of  the  system,  and 
what  is  more,  educated  Catholics  know  that 
it  lies  there.  From  this  lie  can  be  traced 
many  others.  When  one  great  falsehood 
nestles  at  the  heart  of  a  religion,  it  becomes 
the  father  of  other  lies,  until  the  religion  is 
poisoned. 

"  No  lie  is  of  the  truth,"  no  lie  can  pro- 
duce good,  no  lie  can  help  a  people. 

To  say  that  the  Roman  Catholic  religion 
does  not  contain   much  that  is  true  would 

166 


An  Appeal  to   Facts 

be  false.  It  has  much  that  is  common  to 
our  common  Christianity.  It  is  this  which 
has  kept  it  alive.  It  is  this  which  has 
nurtured  its  saints  and  inspired  its  noblest 
workers.  In  order  to  rid  the  system  of  lies 
reformers  have  struggled  and  died,  but  the" 
lies  live  on,  and  thus  in  many  things  the 
system  has  ceased  even  to  resemble  the 
gospel  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 

The  work  of  the  Reformation  was  to  purge 
the  lies  from  the  truth.  Protestantism  exists 
that  the  truth  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  gospel 
may  be  given  to  the  world.  "  The  message 
of  our  Lord  to  men  was,  '  Ye  shall  know  the 
truth  and  the  truth  shall  set  you  free.'  " 


167 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE   DUTY   OF    PROTESTANTS 

When  we  turn  from  a  study  of  Romanism 
and  contemplate  the  bare  possibility  of 
England  relapsing  into  the  bondage  and 
darkness  which  any  candid  study  reveals, 
we  are  tempted  in  indignation  and  appre- 
hension to  use  any  and  every  means  to  resist 
the  encroachments  of  the  dreaded  power. 
And  especially  the  examination  of  the  tor- 
tuous and  unscrupulous  means  which  Rome 
employs  to  achieve  her  ends  tempts  us  to 
borrow  her  methods  to  resist  her  advance. 
But  to  repel  force  with  force,  injustice  with 
injustice,  cruelty  with  cruelty,  cunning  with 
cunning,  persecution  with  persecution,  is  for 
Englishmen  impossible.  Our  whole  genius 
as  a  nation  arises  from  the  repudiation  of 
these  very  methods.  There  would  be  no 
gain  at  all,  as  experience  has  abundantly 
shown,    in    vanquishing    Rome    by    Roman 

i68 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

methods,  for  those  Roman  methods  are 
above  all  what  we  most  wish  to  vanquish. 
It  is  the  fatal,  the  corrupting  notion  that 
force  can  ever  produce  religion,  the  illusion 
that  persecution  of  error  ever  furthers  truth, 
the  pitilessness  of  a  triumphant  dogmatism, 
the  subtle  and  tortuous  ways  of  religious 
propagandism,  which  we  desire  to  banish 
from  our  national  life  and  from  our  national 
religion. 

Thus  our  modes  of  opposing  Rome  are 
necessarily  limited  by  the  very  principle 
which  leads  us  to  oppose  her.  If  we  could 
grasp  and  use  the  arm  of  the  State  to  crush 
her,  we  should  deliberately  abstain  from  that 
advantage.  If  we  could  save  perverts  from 
going  into  her  fold  by  judicious  adaptations 
of  truth,  the  careful  concealment  of  facts 
which  might  be  an  ofTcncc,  we  could  not 
employ  that  bad  instrument  to  achieve  the 
good  end.  The  methods  of  Rome  achieve 
a  momentary  success,  only  to  produce  a 
fierce  reaction  and  miserable  failure.  Signor 
Bartoli  has  told  us  how  he  was  led  to  leave 
the  Jesuits  and  the  Roman  Church.  What 
opened  his  eyes  was  the  discoveiy  that  the 
strong    argument    on    which    he    had    been 

i6g 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

taught  to  rely  in  his  defence  of  the  Roman 
position  was  a  forgery! 

One  day  in  1896,  fresh  from  his  studies, 
and  a  newly-made  Doctor  of  Theology,  he 
was  induced  to  attempt  a  reply  to  an 
Anglican  argument  for  the  validity  of  the 
Anglican  Church  and  Orders.  He  felt  that 
his  task  was  easy  ;  he  quoted  a  famous  pas- 
sage from  Cyprian's  De  Unitate  Ecclesice, 
which  demonstrated  the  claims  of  the 
Papacy  from  the  Father  of  the  third 
century.  When  this  work  was  done,  he 
happened  to  be  in  Germany,  and  showed  it 
to  a  German  Jesuit,  who  said  to  him  :  "  Is  it 
possible  that  you  do  not  know  that  this 
passage  is  an  interpolation?  "  The  shock  to 
this  truth-seeking  mind  was  terrific.  He  had 
actually  been  led  to  build  the  supreme  dogma 
of  Roman  authority,  not  on  the  third-cen- 
tury Father,  who,  indeed,  distinctly  repu- 
diated that  authority,  but  on  a  forged 
interpolation,  inserted  into  the  treatise  by 
that  authority  itself  in  order  to  prove  its 
claims   by  that  characteristic   way. 

Dr.  Bartoli  began  to  inquire.  He  found 
that  the  whole  system  of  the  Papacy  and 
the  method  of  its  defence  were  typified  by 
this  experience. 

170 


The   Duty  of   Protestants 

He  has  left  the  Church  of  Rome  and  is 
becoming  a  leader  in  the  Protestant  Church 
of  Italy.  Rome's  inveterate  trust  in  for- 
geries, duplicities,  and  hoodwinkings  is 
ultimately  her  betrayal.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  she  produces  Protestantism  ever  afresh. 
If  she  got  rid  of  all  Protestants  to-day,  she 
would  have  another  batch  on  her  hands  to- 
morrow ;  truth-loving  souls  in  her  owti  fold 
would  come  out,  choked  by  the  stifling 
atmosphere  of  fraud  and  violence,  deter- 
mined to  breathe  the  fresh  air. 

The  methods  of  Rome  must,  therefore, 
be  repudiated,  deliberately  and  consistently 
repudiated.  Intrigue,  backstair  workings, 
trimming,  hiding  inconvenient  facts,  giving 
a  false  emphasis  to  convenient  facts,  the 
employment  of  the  civil  Government  to  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  a  religious  belief,  the 
unjust  disqualification  or  persecution  of 
religious  opponents,  the  use  of  positions  of 
trust  to  insinuate  a  proselytising  agent  sur- 
reptitiously— all  these  approved  methods  of 
the  Roman  propaganda  are  for  us  out  of 
court.  We  cannot  fight  Rome  with  her  own 
weapons.  We  can  only  use  the  weapons  of 
truth  ;    we  cannot  even  in  our  warfare  in- 

171 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

fringe  the  principles  of  liberty  and  of  even- 
handed  justness. 

Directly  men  turn  their  eyes  Romeward 
they  begin  the  practice  of  deceit.  Newman, 
even  in  1833,  could  write  to  a  friend:  "  I 
expect  to  be  called  a  Papist  when  my 
opinions  are  known  ;  but,  please  God,  I  shall 
lead  persons  on  a  little  way,  while  they  fancy 
they  are  only  taking  the  mean,  and  denounce 
me  as  the  extreme."  '  "  Since  I  have  been 
at  home,"  writes  Hurrell  Froude,  "  I  have 
been  doing  what  I  can  to  proselytise  in  an 
underhand  way."  2  Guile,  deception,  under- 
hand ways,  are  precisely  what  we  as  Pro- 
testants cannot  use.  We  turn  to  the  light, 
we  stand  for  truth.  Better  Rome  should  win 
the  day  than  that  we  should  resist  her  by 
lying.  Better  the  liberties  of  England 
should  be  lost  than  that  the  sovereignty  of 
justice,  toleration,  and  love  should  be  im- 
paired. 

Then  are  our  weapons  against  Rome  weak 
and  few?  No;  they  are  mighty  before 
God  to  the  casting  down  of  strongholds 
(  2  Cor.  X.  4).     They  are  not  "  of  the  flesh," 

*  Newman's  "Letters,"  vol.  i.  p.  490, 
'  Ffoudc's  "  Remains,"  vol.  i.  p.  322. 

172 


The   Duty  of   Protestants 

it  is  true,  but  if  we  will  only  trust  to  them, 
they  are  sure  to  succeed.  Truth,  liberty, 
justice,  the  living  faith  in  the  living  God, 
the  firm  grasp  of  Christ  as  our  Saviour,  and 
the  reception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  our 
Teacher,  Comforter,  Guide — can  these 
simple  spiritual  weapons  prevail?  Are  we 
safe  in  renouncing  all  carnal  weapons  and 
casting  ourselves  wholly  on  truth  and  on 
God?     Assuredly, 

It  may  be  said  to  be  the  function  of  Pro- 
testantism to-day  to  demonstrate  the  validity 
of  these  spiritual  weapons,  and  to  repudiate 
the  errors  which  our  Protestant  fathers  have 
made  in  resorting  to  weapons  of  another 
character.  Frequently  the  charge  is  brought 
up  against  us  that  Calvin  procured  the  death 
of  Servetus.  How  docs  he  differ  from  the 
Pope  in  this  method  of  persecution?  Our 
reply  is  unhesitating.  He  did  not  procure  tlie 
death  ;  but  if  he  had  done  so,  we  must  have 
repudiated  him.'  The  whole  difference  lies  in 
this,  that  Rome,  in  the  destruction  of  heretics, 
acts  in  conformity  with  lier  principles,  prin- 
ciples which  she  still  holds  and  defends. 
Calvin,  so  far  as  he  was  responsible  fortlieexe- 

'  See  "Treatise  on  the  Secret  Providence  of  God," 
pp.  128,  129.     "Calvin's  Works," vol.  viii.  p.  646. 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

cution  of  Servetus,  exhibits  the  survival  of  the 
bad  Roman  doctrine,  as  is  not  astonishing  in 
one  who  was  trained  in  the  Roman  Church ; 
and  it  is  with  difficulty  that  we  throw  off  the 
under-garments  of  early  training  even  when 
our  outer  garments  are  changed.  But  Pro- 
testantism, as  it  has  come  to  realise  its  own 
principles,  unhesitatingly  condemns  Calvin. 
The  difference  is  vital :  Rome  can  only  cease 
to  persecute  by  surrendering  her  fundamental 
principles  ;  Protestantism  must  surrender  its 
fundamental  principles  in  order  to  persecute. 

But  in  what  sense  are  we  to  use  truth  as 
our  weapon  against  Rome  ?  In  this  sense  : 
We  must  acquaint  our  people  with  the  for- 
gotten facts  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  with 
the  unknown  underlying  principles  which  are 
so  skilfully  concealed  in  the  modern  propa- 
ganda as  it  is  carried  on  in  England. 
Further,  we  must  support  the  Modernists  in 
their  claim  to  let  in  the  light  of  science 
and  criticism,  to  search  the  assumptions  and 
dogmas  of  the  Church. 

And  in  this  God-given  task  we  must  set 
truth  in  the  forefront  and  follow  it  as  a 
guide. 

I.  The  truth  must  be  lold  about  Rome. 
We    may    acknowledge    with    sorrow    and 

174 


The   Duty  of  Protestants 

shame  that  Protestant  controversialists  have 
often  been  led  into  extravagance  and 
violence.  But  is  that  a  reason  for  not  tell- 
ing the  truth  about  Rome?  Surely  not.  We 
want  our  wisest,  best  instructed,  and  most 
charitable  minds  to  place  before  the  Church 
and  the  country  the  exact  truth.  We  know 
only  too  well  what  the  Catholic  Truth  Society 
says ;  its  subtle  way  of  representing 
Rome  as  if  it  were  Protestant,  in  order  to 
commend  it  to  Protestants.  It  publishes  a 
tract,  "  What  do  Roman  Catholics  Believe?  " 
And  the  answer  to  the  question  is  a  summary 
of  the  things  which  Catholics  believe  in 
common  with  Protestants.  It  leaves  the 
careless  reader  to  conclude  that  the  belief 
of  Catholics  is  the  same  as  that  of  Pro- 
testants. Truth  has  to  answer  the  question  : 
"  \\'hat  else  do  Catholics  believe?"'  For 
the  whole  difference  is  made  by  the  super- 
added beliefs— the  I^clicf  in  tradition  which 
neutralises  the  Bible,  in  tlic  Pope  and  the 
priest  who  intervene  in  the  soul's  ai)proacli 
to  God,  in  the  Mariolatry  and  saint- 
worship  whirh  reduces  the  meaning  and 
value  of  the  soul's  direct  relation  with  Christ. 
Truth  means   in   this   connection  the  whole 

175 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  It  is  our 
duty  to  inform  ourselves  and  our  fellow- 
countrymen  of  this  whole  truth  concerning 
Rome. 

The  truth  can  be  found  ;  it  is  open  to 
us.  What  Rome  teaches  in  the  Encyclicals 
of  her  infallible  Popes  can  be  known,  just 
as  what  she  teaches  in  the  writings  of  her 
authorised  doctors  is  open  to  the  student. 
William  George  Ward,  in  his  infatuated  love 
of  the  Papacy,  wished  that  he  might  have 
Bulls  and  Encyclicals  of  the  infallible  Pope 
laid  on  his  breakfast-table  every  morning 
with  the  Times.  The  Church  is  an  E celesta 
Oocens — that  is,  she  is  a  living  voice,  pro- 
fessedly teaching  the  truth  of  God.  She 
told  the  world  in  1854  that  the  Virgin  was 
conceived  without  sin.  She  told  it  again  in 
1870  that  the  Pope  is  infallible.  She  has 
recently,  in  the  Encyclical  "  Pascendi 
Grcgis,"  told  us  how  she  meets  the  search 
for  truth,  how  she  deals  with  Catholics  who 
surrender  themselves  to  that  search. 

All  this  should  be  known  in  England.  If, 
in  the  full  light  of  what  Romanism  is,  and 
what  it  teaches,  and  how  it  works,  England 
submits  to  Rome,  well  and  good.     Who  shall 

176 


The  Duty  of   Protestants 

complain?  But  the  truth  about  Rome  must 
be  stated  and  known.  The  perversions  and 
concealments  of  the  Jesuitical  proselytisers 
must  be  exposed.  In  this  way  truth  will 
make  us  free.  I  know,  for  instance,  that 
if  my  countrymen  knew  as  much  of  Rome  as 
I  do,  they  would  not  dream  of  going  over 
to  her,  and  of  restoring  our  common  country 
to  her  tender  mercies. 

We  must  take  pains  to  bring  out  the  exact 
teaching  and  tendency  of  Roman  Catholi- 
cism. \Vc  must,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the 
term,  rub  it  in.  People  are  slow  to  grasp 
it ;  they  cannot  believe  that  men  bearing 
the  name  of  Christian  can  possibly  believe 
what  Catholics  believe,  or  act  as  Catholics 
act.  We  must  insist  on  it,  until  the  country 
really  grasps  the  inwardness  and  the  out- 
wardness of  the  Roman  creed.  It  has  only 
to  be  known,  in  a  free  and  truth-loving  com- 
munity, to  be  rejected  with  the  same 
vehemence  now  as  it  was  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Rome  is  not  better,  but  worse,  than 
she  was  in  1525.  At  the  time  of  the 
Reformation  the  Jesuits  were  yet  in  the 
womb  of  time  ;  now  they  are  the  strongest, 
the  dominant  force,  in  the  Roman  Church. 

177  :5i 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

Jesuit  morality,  Jesuit  teaching,  Jesuit  wire- 
pulling are  Roman  Catholicism.  And  for 
Englishmen  to  understand  the  Jesuits  is  to 
repudiate  them.  The  spirit  of  England  is 
as  far  removed  from  the  spirit  of  the  Jesuits 
as  human  nature  can  be  divided  part  from 
part.  Everything  that  Englishmen  love  and 
believe  in,  the  Jesuits  repudiate.  Everything 
that  Englishmen  hate  and  loathe  the  Jesuits 
believe  and  practise. 

For  example,  there  has  not  in  recent  years 
been  a  more  unanimous  opinion  in  England 
than  the  condemnation  of  King  Leopold  of 
Belgium.     He  was  a  man  whose  private  life 
was  the  scandal  of  Europe  ;    he  was  respon- 
sible for  that  hideous  regime  on  the  Congo 
which    England    rightly    described    as    the 
greatest  crime  in  history.     Sir  Arthur  Conan 
Doyle,  a  convert  from  Romanism,  roused  the 
whole  country  to  the  horror  of  that  iniquity. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  genuine 
Englishman    breathing   who   does   not   con- 
demn Leopold  and  feel  that  a  faith  in  future 
punishment  is  demanded  by  the  necessity-^ 
if  there   is  any  moral   order  at  all   in  the 
universe— for  such  a  life  of  lust  and  greed 
and  cruelty  to  suffer  in  a  future  world  the 

178 


The   Duty  of  Protestants 

penalty  which  it  has  eluded  here.  That  is 
the  sentiment  of  England,  the  sentiment  of 
morality,  the  sentiment  of  a  pure  and  un^ 
sophisticated  human  nature. 

Now,  how  does  the  Jesuit,  and  the  Church 
led  by  the  Jesuit,  regard  the  same  pheno- 
menon ?  Here  is  the  newspaper  account  of 
the  sermon  preached  by  the  most  prominent 
Catholic  preacher  on  the  Sunday  evening 
after  Leopold's  death :  "  Preaching  last 
evening  at  St.  Mary's,  E.,  Father  Bernard 
Vaughan  said  that  while  drawing  a  veil  over 
the  private  life  of  the  late  King  Leopold, 
they  might  look  with  admiration  upon  much 
that  he  had  done  publicly  for  the  lasting 
good  of  his  people.  Belgium  was  an  object- 
lesson  to  Europe.  He  was  glad  that  the 
late  King  had  in  the  hour  of  his  extremity 
expressed  his  sincere  sorrow  for  the  bad 
example  he  had  given  his  subjects,  and  he 
died  publicly  confessing  his  belief  in  the 
Catholic  Church."  That  is  Catholicism  all 
over.  Belief  in  the  Catholic  Church  covers 
all  sins.  No  immorality,  cruelty,  brutality 
matters  in  the  least  as  long  as  men  believe 
in  that  Church,  that  mother  of  sins. 

You    draw   a   veil   over   the    private   life. 

179 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

It  is  an  irrelevant  detail  that  the  man  re- 
pudiated his  wife  and  his  children,  and  took 
to  himself  another  woman,  to  whom  he  left 
his  bloodstained  millions.  It  is  not  worth 
mentioning  that  the  man  ruined  more 
innocent  girls  than  any  man  ever  did  since 
the  worst  of  the  Roman  Emperors.  The 
whole  horror  of  that  Congo  regime,  the 
millions  of  lives  sacrificed  to  the  man's 
greed,  under  the  hypocritical  pretence  of 
civilising  and  protecting  the  helpless  natives, 
is  quietly  passed  over.  In  the  Jesuit  breast 
it  excites  no  condemnation,  no  censure.  The 
simple  narrative  of  what  was  done  by 
Leopold  is  so  blood-curdling  that  even 
strong  men  have  nearly  swooned  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  read  it  through.  But  the  Jesuit 
passes  it  with  placid  acquiescence.  Leopold 
died  publicly  professing  his  belief  in  the 
Catholic  Church.  That  is  enough.  There  is 
nothing  in  Leopold's  life  inconsistent  with 
that  belief,  nothing  in  the  Catholic  system 
which  could  restrain  a  man  from  such  a  life. 
All  this  he  could  be  and  do,  and  be  a  good 
Catholic.  There  is  no  crime  or  vice  which 
is  not  tolerated  as  long  as  the  authority  of 
the   Church  is  admitted.      If   Leopold  had 

1 80 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

been  a  model  of  virtue  and  had  become  a 
Protestant,  the  Jesuit  would  have  been 
roused  to  fury  and  indignation  ;  no  language 
would  have  been  strong  enough  to  denounce 
him,  no  lies  would  have  been  wrong  which 
could  misrepresent  and  calumniate  him.  But 
he  might  be  the  worst  man  that  ever 
breathed  and  yet  be  a  good  Catholic.  The 
ruined  girls  and  the  tortured  and  massacred 
natives  of  the  Congo  rise  up  to  meet  him  in 
Sheol  :  "  Art  thou  also  become  weak  as 
we  ?  Art  thou  become  like  unto  us  ?  "  If 
there  is  a  hell,  we  know  that  this  man  is 
there.  We  are  even  forced  to  believe  in  hell, 
that  our  instinct  of  retributive  justice  may  be 
satisfied.  But  meanwhile,  "  the  Church  " 
—how  could  it  be  the  Church  of  the  Bible 
or  the  Church  of  Christ? — speaks  smooth 
things.  "  He  died  publicly  professing  his 
belief  in  tlic  Catholic  Church."  That  is 
all  that  is  wanted — not  righteousness  or 
goodness  ;  not  mercy  or  purity.  No,  the 
grossest  impurity,  the  most  unscrupulous 
avarice,  the  cruellest  treatment  of  wife  and 
family,  do  not  count.  Belief  in  tlie  Catholic 
Church,  and  that  alone,  is  needed. 

Nothing    more    morally    corrupting    than 

i8l 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

this  can  be  conceived.  A  religion  which 
makes  behef  in  itself  the  one  thing  needful, 
and  allows  that  belief  to  be,  not  the  motive 
to  goodness,  but  the  substitute  for  it,  is  a 
curse  to  mankind.  This  is  the  religion  of 
the  Jesuits.  The  whole  soul  and  conscience 
of  this  country  are  against  it.  Our  duty  is 
to  show  what  this  religion  is,  and  the  fruit 
it  bears,  that  the  country  may  judge. 

2.  Hardly  less  vital  is  it  to  vindicate  the 
truth  of  science  and  of  criticism.  Here  we 
join  hands  with  the  Modernists.  We  do 
not  believe  that  their  conclusions  are  correct. 
We  claim  the  same  right  to  judge  theii 
opinions  that  we  do  to  judge  the  opinions 
of  our  own  scholars.  We  no  more  accept 
Loisy  and  Tyrrell  than  we  do  Cheyne  and 
Troelsch.  But  we  are  sure  that  the  only 
guarantee  for  truth  and  progress  is  that  men 
should  be  at  liberty  to  inquire,  and  to  state 
their  conclusions  freely  as  Loisy  and  Tyrrell 
have  done.  If  ecclesiastical  censure,  ex- 
communication, and  practical  ruin  are  to  fall 
on  every  one  who  dares  to  think  and  to 
utter  the  truth  that  is  in  him,  we  relapse 
into  the  darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It 
is    quite    certain — and    the    fact    should    be 

182 


The   Duty  of   Protestants 

brought  home  to  England — that  if  the 
Church  secured  the  authority  she  is  claiming, 
if  she  controlled  the  education  of  the 
country,  as  she  seeks  to  do,  the  same  mental 
blight  would  fall  on  England  that  has  gone 
near  to  destroy  the  Latin  countries.  Every 
Protestant  who  goes  over  to  Rome  promotes 
that  appalling  result.  Even  if  he  retains  his 
own  freedom,  and  dares  to  speak,  as  Tyrrell 
did ;  even  if  he  criticises  Rome  as  Lord 
Acton  did — no  Protestant  controversialist 
ever  passed  such  appalling  judgments  on 
Rome  as  Acton  the  historian  and  the 
Catholic  did — and  in  some  way  vindicates 
his  own  conscience  by  such  freedom  of  utter- 
ance, yet  he  throws  his  weight  into  the  scale 
against  truth  and  freedom,  he  helps  to  lead 
in  the  subjugators  of  his  country. 

Is  there  a  sight  in  the  world  more  pitiable 
than  that  of  those  noblemen  and  commoners 
of  prominence  who,  in  order  as  they  think  to 
save  their  own  little  souls,  do  what  they  can 
to  bring  our  country  under  the  yoke?  They 
would  destroy  the  liberties,  the  hard-won 
liberties,  of  England,  and  bring  back  the 
Papal  tyranny,  in  the  face  of  the  witness  of 
history  and  the  actual  facts  of  the  Catholic 

183 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

world,   in  their  craven  desire  for  personal 
ease   and   deliverance  from  the   burden   of 
truth.   Under  the  Roman  domination  science 
cannot   flourish,   criticism   becomes   a   blunt 
and  futile  weapon.     Galileo  will  always  be 
forced  to  his  humiliating  repudiation.     An 
Encyclical  "  Pascendi  Gregis  "  will  always 
be  hurled  at  those  who  dare  to  think  and 
to  express  their  thoughts.     We  must  induce 
men  to  realise  the  intellectual  death  which 
the    Church    brought   upon   Europe   in   the 
Middle  Ages,  the  intellectual  torpor  which 
she    brings    to-day    wherever    she    is    not 
corrected    by    an    overwhelming    Protestant 
majority ;    we  must  burn  into  the  brain  of 
England  the  one  fact  that  120,000,000  out 
of  the   180,000,000  Catholics  in  this  world 
are   illiterate.      We  must  teach  the   young 
to    see    how   civilisations    decay   where    the 
rights  of  science  and  criticism  are  denied. 
The  facts  are  so  patent,   the   Church  is  so 
unchangeable,  the  actual  leaders  of  Catho- 
licism   are    so    obscurantist,    that    the    task 
is  not   impossible,    difficult   though   it   con- 
fessedly  is. 

3.  Truth  is  the  first  weapon  in  the  war- 
fare of  Protestantism.    One  of  the  liberating 

184 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

spirits  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  England 
was  Matthew  Arnold,  and  a  verse  of  his 
might  well  be  inscribed  on  our  banners  ;  for 
it  tells  the  secret  of  our  English  life  and 
training,  and  affords  the  guarantee  for  that 
renewed  warfare  against  Rome  which  v/e 
thought  had  been  accomplished  by  our 
fathers  in  the  sixteenth  century  : 

"  For  rigorous  teachers  trained  my  youth, 
And  fed  its  lamp,  and  trimmed  its  fire  ; 
Showed  me  the  high  white  star  of  truth, 
There  bade  me  gaze,  and  there  aspire." 

We  cannot  lay  too  much  stress  on  this. 
If  Romanism  is  Christianity,  if  this  system 
is  the  intention  of  Christ,  if  this  practical 
repudiation  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Apostles, 
has  any  justification,  in  theoretic  truth  or 
in  practical  rcsuUs,  let  us  be  eager  to  accept 
it.  Let  us  have  an  open  mind.  The  Bible 
is  before  us,  history  is  before  us,  the  work 
of  Catholicism  is  before  us.  We  have  no 
interest  to  misrepresent  the  doctrine  or  the 
practice  of  the  Roman  Church.  If  we  are 
misinformed,  we  are  ready  to  retract  ;  if  we 
are  ignorant,  we  want  to  know.     But  if  the 

185 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

infallible  Pope  said  at  the  Vatican  Council 
that  he  "  wished  of  course  that  Catholicism 
should  have  the  benefit  of  toleration  in 
England  and  Russia,  but  the  principle  must 
be  repudiated  by  a  Church  holding  the 
doctrine  of  exclusive  salvation,''  '  we  ought 
to  know;  England  ought  to  know  it.  The 
Roman  Church  is  in  favour  of  intolerance. 

For  my  own  part,  I  take  my  stand  wholly 
on  what  Rome  herself  teaches  and  does. 
I  lay  no  stress  on  her  abuses  or  her  failures. 
All  Churches  have  their  faults.  But  it  is 
her  avowed  doctrine,  her  closely  organised 
system,  and  her  admitted  mode  of  working 
it,  facts,  indisputable  facts,  which  are  suffi- 
cient, if  known,  to  save  England  from 
yielding  to  her  blandishments. 

No  instructed  Catholic  can  deny  (  i )  that 
his  Church  repudiates  the  principle  of  tolera- 
tion ;  ( 2 )  that  his  Church  places  the  Pope 
in  a  posilion  which  requires  the  absolute 
and  unqualified  surrender  of  the  mind  and 
even  of  the  conscience  to  his  authority  ; 
(3)  that  St.  Alfonso  de  Liguori,  a  Doctor 
of  the  Church,  whose  writings  were  declared 
by  the  Pope  to  be  free  from  error,  taught 

'  Acton,  "  History  of  Freedom,"  p,  520. 
186 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

that  the  priest  is  the  creator  of  his  Creator, 
and  that  the  soul  can  get  to  heaven  by  Mary 
more  readily  than  it  can  by  Christ. » 

If  the  Pope  could  publicly  deny  these 
things,  if  Catholics  were  entitled  to 
deny  them,  it  would  be  quite  different. 
They  do  not ;  they  cannot.  Their  only 
weapon  of  evasion  is  to  leave  these  things 
in  silence  and  to  fix  on  some  trifling  error 
of  language  or  quotation,  and  to  suggest 
that  one  who  states  these  facts  is  untrust- 
worthy. 

It  is  the  Catholic  method  of  controversy, 

*  See  "  Glories  of  Mary,"  p.  248.  "  O  immaculate 
and  entirely  pure  Virj^in  Mary,  Mother  of  God,  Queen 
of  the  universe  .  .  .  through  thee  we  have  been  recon- 
ciled with  our  God."  "  Thou  art  the  consolation  of 
the  world  .  .  .  the  salvation  of  the  whole  world  .  .  . 
O  immaculate  Virgin,  we  are  under  thy  protection,  and 
therefore  we  have  recourse  to  thee  alone ;  and  we 
beseech  thee  to  prevent  thy  beloved  Son,  who  is 
irritated  by  our  sin,  from  abandoning  us  to  the  power 
of  the  devil."  Or  again,  on  pp.  251,252:  "O  Mary, 
thou  art  omnipotent  to  save  sinners  ,  .  .  We  are  all 
God's  debtors,  but  He  is  a  debtor  to  thee."  If  any 
Catholic  in  authority  would  or  could  lepudiate  the 
appalling  extravagances  of  vSt.  Alfonso  de  Lignori,  we 
should  have  hope  of  reformation.  But  no,  every  good 
Catholic  is  absolutely  bound  to  the  teaching  of  this 
Doctor  and  canonised  saint  of  the  Church. 

187 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

which,  when  it  is  understood,  is  the  most 
damning  evidence  against  rhe  Roman 
Church.  She  knows  that  what  she  calls 
"  truth  "  is  no  longer  true  to  the  enlightened 
mind,  and  must  be  repudiated  by  all  who 
love  truth  for  truth's  sake.  She  is  engaged 
in  an  endless  effort  to  divert  men's  minds 
from  the  subject  of  truth  and  to  force  them 
into  submission  to  authority.  But  just  in 
proportion  as  we  see  the  "  high  white  star 
of  truth  "  we  repudiate  that  Church  which 
has  dimmed  it,  and,  so  far  as  possible, 
hidden  it. 

But  while  this  is  the  general  principle 
of  our  resistance  to  Rome,  a  demand  for 
truth  and  a  belief  in  truth,  practical  ques- 
tions emerge  :  Ought  we  to  maintain  the 
Oath  which  the  Sovereign  is  bound  to  take 
at  the  Coronation?  Ought  we  to  insist  on 
the  inspection  of  convents  ?  Ought  we  to 
allow  public  money  to  go  to  the  maintenance 
of  Catholic  schools? 

When  Protestants  are  called  to  action  to- 
day it  is  on  these  issues  that  the  appeal 
turns  ;  and  we  cannot  be  too  careful  in  dis- 
criminating. It  injures  our  cause  if  in  the 
defence  of  it  we  are  tempted  to  advocate 

j8S 


The   Duty  of  Protestants 

anything  which  violates  our  own  principles 
of  liberty  and  justice. 

There  is  the  question  of  the  Coronation 
Oath.  It  was  once  a  vital  matter  to  exclude 
a  Catholic  king.  Charles  II.  and  James  II. 
were  our  last  Catholic  kings.  The  one  re- 
duced the  moral  tone  of  this  country  to  the 
lowest  point  it  has  ever  reached  ;  the  other 
brought  our  liberties  and  our  Constitution 
to  the  verge  of  ruin,  and  we  were  saved  only 
by  the  glorious  revolution  of  1688.  When 
the  last  Catholic  king  was  driven  with 
ignominy  from  our  shores,  and  the  "  Pre- 
tenders "  were  finally  vanquished  at  Preston 
Pans  and  Culloden,  this  country  registered 
its  silent  vow  :  "  Never  again  I  "  And  no 
Catholic,  oath  or  not,  could  ever  sit  on  the 
English  throne.  He  would  be  so  entirely 
out  of  harmony  with  the  country  that  the 
Throne,  which  maintains  its  position  and 
authority  solely  by  the  goodwill  of  the 
people,  would  be  overthrown.  If  the  King 
became  a  Catholic,  the  heart  of  his  people 
would  necessarily  turn  from  him.  It  is  by 
a  far  surer  and  more  radical  method  that 
the  King  is  kept  Protestant  than  by  the  Oath. 
For,  indeed,  the  Oath  is  no  hindrance  to  a 

189 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

Catholic,  as  the  later  Stuarts  showed.  If 
the  sovereign  were  a  Catholic,  he  would  get 
a  dispensation  from  the  Pope  to  take  the 
Oath,  which  repudiates  Catholicism.  The 
Oath,  therefore,  is  no  security,  and  little  is 
gained  by  preserving  an  antiquated  and 
unreal  safeguard.  Or  if,  while  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  Church  continues  in  this 
country,  it  is  necessary  to  secure  by  a  formal 
enactment  that  the  sovereign  is  a  Pro- 
testant, the  Oath  can,  at  any  rate,  be  modi- 
fied in  its  terms,  so  that  the  language  which 
is  unnecessarily  offensive  may  not  wound 
the  Catholic  subjects  of  the  Crown.  If  the 
Oath  itself  is  an  antiquated  and  useless 
defence,  still  more  is  the  language  in  which 
it  is  couched  an  unnecessary  and  mis- 
chievous  irritation. 

To  countervail  Romanism  the  best,  and 
only,  method  is  to  give  Roman  Catholics 
absolute  equality  with  Protestants,  to  remove 
all  disabilities,  and  apply  the  uniform  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  and  justice.  The  country 
quickly  finds  that  Catholics  disqualify  them- 
selves for  the  higher  and  the  more  im- 
portant posts.  If  we  ever  had  one  Catholic 
Chancellor,    there    would   be    little    fear    of 

190 


The   Duty  of   Protestants 

having  another.  The  Catholic  training  and 
the  Catholic  principles,  the  complete  sub- 
jection of  the  Catholic  mind  to  priest  and 
Pope,  make  it  impossible  for  a  Catholic  to 
hold  the  highest  place  in  the  judiciary  of 
a  free  people.  He  would  bring  the  whole 
system  of  law  into  suspicion.  No  judge  can 
be  impartial  whose  conscience  and  intellect 
are  in  the  keeping  of  an  alien  authority. 

The  security  for  Protestantism  in  the  high 
offices  of  the  State  is  intrinsic  rather  than 
statutory.  Wc  can,  if  our  principles  are 
right,  fearlessly  trust  that  security.  We 
have  only  to  remember  that  every  genuine 
Catholic  firmly  believes  that  the  government 
of  the  land  ought  to  suppress  heresy,  and 
that  the  canon  law  overrides  civil  law,  to 
see  that  "  good  Catholics  "  cannot  be  trusted 
in  the  high  places  of  the  State. 

Of  course  if  the  country  became  Catholic, 
the  King,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  the 
judges  might  safely  be  Catholic,  as  they  are 
in  Spain  or  Belgium  ;  but  that  is  a  situa- 
tion which  need  not  be  discussed,  for 
England  would  have  ceased  to  be  England. 

The  inspection  of  convents  is  quite  dif- 
ferent.      There    is    no    injustice,    and    no 

191 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer  England 

unworthy  interference  with  liberty,  if  the 
country  demands  the  inspection  of  these,  as 
of  other  institutions.  The  demand  of  the 
Roman  Church  for  exemption  from  the  con- 
trol and  securities  which  a  wise  Government 
offers  may  be  granted  as  a  favour,  but 
cannot  be  conceded  as  a  right. 

If  laundries  and  industrial  schools  are  in- 
spected, in  order  to  avoid  the  abuses  and 
cruelties  which  easily  spring  up  in  such 
institutions,  there  is  no  reason  why  these 
institutions  should  not  be  inspected  when 
they  are  connected  with  convents.  And, 
with  the  enormous  increase  of  convents  in 
this  country,  especially  when  many  of  them 
are  those  French  communities  which  fled 
from  their  own  country  in  order  to  elude  the 
salutary  inspection  of  the  Government,  it 
would  be  wise  and  perfectly  just  to  insist 
on  such  inspections  here.  But  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  the  inspection  is  entirely 
in  the  interests  of  the  institutions  them- 
selves ;  and  if  they  decline  the  guarantee 
which  such  inspection  gives,  they  must  take 
the  consequences.  Give  them  time,  and  con- 
ventual  institutions   always   perish   by  their 

own  intrinsic  corruptions ,    An  unnatural  and 

192 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

demoralising  system  brings  its  own  Nemesis. 
Catholic  countries,  like  Italy  and  France,  are 
always  driven,  in  the  long  run,  to  suppress 
the  convents  as  a  national  danger.  But  a 
free  people  under  Protestant  rule  can  afford 
to  let  them  alone  until  their  inevitable  day  of 
doom  comes.  If  Catholics  choose  to  enter 
into  that  useless  and  futile  life  which  has 
been  sufficiently  revealed  to  the  world  by 
the  writings  of  Joseph  McCabe,  or  by  the 
narrative  of  Miss  Moult,  who  escaped  from 
the  convent  at  Bergholt,  they  should  be 
allowed  to  do  so.  After  all,  it  is  fortunate 
in  a  way  that  Catholicism  borrowed  the 
monastic  ideal  from  Buddhism  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  main  reasons  of  its  sterilisation  and 
ultimate  ruin. 

Before  Erotestantism  became  a  living 
power,  Catholic  countries  were  bound  to 
suppress  monasteries  and  convents  in  order 
to  escape  a  threatened  death  ;  but  when  the 
world  is  practically  Protestant,  and  the  life 
of  the  country  is  secured  by  the  principles 
of  liberty  and  truth,  it  need  not  interfere 
with  those  deluded  people  who,  in  ignorance 
of  the  redemptive  work  of  Christian  faith, 
seek  a  refuge  from  the  world  in  the  cloister. 

IQ3  o 


Shall   Rome  Reconquer  England 

We  should,  therefore,  probably  be  wise  if 
we  limited  our  demand  for  convent  inspec- 
tion to  the  perfectly  reasonable  requirement 
that  industrial  and  educational  institutions 
must  submit  to  inspection,  whether  they  be 
in  connection  with  convents  or  not. 

The  question  of  Catholic  education  raises 
a  more  difficult  and  complicated  problem. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  if  the  Catholics  be- 
come a  powerful  body,  and  threaten  in  any 
way  to  master  the  community,  we  must 
defend  ourselves  from  the  influence  of  the 
priests  in  the  schools.  The  ruin  of  Ireland 
has  been  justly  traced  by  Mr.  Hugh  O'Don- 
aell  to  the  priestly  domination  of  the  Irish 
schools.  And  Father  Crowley's  book,  "  The 
Parochial  School  a  Curse  to  the  Church,  a 
Menace  to  the  Nation,"  shows  how  mis- 
chievous the  Catholic  schools  are  even  in 
America.  No  free  country  could  maintain 
its  freedom,  or  even  its  intelligence,  if  the 
schools  and  universities  were  left  in  the 
hands  of  Rome.  Probably  nine  out  of  ten 
Englishmen  are  aware  of  this ;  and  the 
country  would  be  justified  in  insisting  on 
secular  education  if  there  were  even  a  fear 
of  priestly  domination  in  the  schools. 

194 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

But  it  may  be  fairly  urged  that  the 
Catholics  are  a  very  small  section  of  our 
EngHsh  people.  Of  the  2,000,000  Catholics 
in  this  country,  1,800,000  are  Irish  or 
foreigners ;  only  200,000  are  genuinely 
English.  These  Catholics,  like  the  Jews, 
pay  rates.  Considering  the  necessity  of 
Catholic  education  for  the  support  of 
Catholicism,  a  great  and  generous  country 
may  justly  consent  to  the  principle  that 
Catholics  may  pay  their  rates  to  the  Catholic 
"Schools.  The  more  complete  we  can  make 
our  system  of  public  schools,  with  the 
common  religious  teaching  and  atmosphere 
which  meet  the  needs  of  all  Protestants,  the 
more  safely  we  may  grant  to  sections,  like 
Catholics  and  Jews,  schools  of  their  own. 
Inevitably  the  public  schools  will  draw  away 
from,  and  supersede,  the  sectarian  institu-r 
tions.  Enlightened  Catholics  will,  in  their 
children's  interest,  prefer  the  public  schools, 
as  they  do  in  America.  We  need  not  there-r 
fore  make  the  education  question  the  first 
line  of  our  defence  against  Rome.  Leave 
Rome  to  educate  her  own  children,  and  you 
only  hasten  her  decay.  ^History,  science, 
literature,   taught   with   a   Roman   bias,   put 

19s 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

the  children  and  the  youths  at  a  hopeless 
disadvantage  in  competition  with  the 
scholars  of  free  and  enlightened  schools. 
Light  is  the  great  boon ;  Rome  perishes 
because  she  loves  darkness  rather  than 
light.       -^ 

iWhat,  then,  is  the  method  for  resisting 
Rome,  beyond  the  bold  statement  of  the 
facts,  and  speaking  the  truth  in  the  love  of 
it?j  If  we  are  not  to  depend  on  the  methods 
which  savour  of  political  disqualification  or 
political  repression,  if  we  are  to  give  the 
Catholics  advantages  and  liberty  such  as 
they  would  never  dream  of  giving  to  us  when 
they  have  the  power,  on  what  can  we  rely 
in  the  struggle  for  freedom  from  the  Roman 
domination  ? 

On  what  did  our  fathers  rely  when  they 
were  called  upon  to  oppose  Rome  with  her 
as  yet  unbroken  prestige  and  power?  For 
a  thousand  years  she  had  ruled  with  all  the 
appearance  of  Heaven-given  authority  ;  her 
organisation,  absolute  and  crushing,  was 
ubiquitous  ;  she  had  kings  and  governments 
as  her  obedient  tools  ;  she  had  prisons  and 
thumbscrews,  racks  and  faggots  at  her  dis- 
posal.    But  our  fathers  overthrew  her  by  the 

196 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

simple  power  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  by 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  by  the  co-operation 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  weapons  of  our 
warfare  are  spiritual  and  mighty  to  the 
pulling  down  of  strongholds.  Rome  pro- 
fesses to  laugh  them  to  scorn,  but  she 
knows  they  are  irresistible.  To-day,  of 
the  500,000,000  of  Christendom,  only 
180,000,000  are  in  the  Roman  obedience; 
and  the  vast  majority  of  these  are  illiterate. 
The  truth  has  won,  and  is  winning.  Surely, 
if  slowly,  by  the  laws  of  God  which  are 
always  operant,  Catholicism  is  breaking  up, 
and  Christianity  is  coming.  Truth,  light, 
liberty,  these  are  the  solvents  of  that  dark 
and  hoary  system. 

But  our  surest  way  of  taking  our  part  in 
the  victory  of  light  is  to  enter  into  the  living 
experience  of  the  gospel  of  our  L'ord  Jesus 
Christ.  Directly  we  come  to  Him,  and  are 
pardoned  and  reconciled  to  God  by  His 
work,  we  receive  the  Holy  Spirit,  witnessing" 
with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of 
God.  .We  stand  fast  in  the  liberty  with 
which  Christ  has  made  us  free.  Straight- 
way the  Bible  becomes  to  us  a  light  and  a 
power.    We  have  within  reach  our  Authority 

197 


Shall   Rome   Reconquer   England 

and  our  Criterium.  The  spiritual  life  which 
comes  to  us  in  this  faith  and  experience 
enables  us  to  resist  the  Roman  error  and 
despotism  with  the  power  of  God.  The  Re- 
formers were  irresistible  by  virtue  of  this 
power ;  we  by  the  same  means  can  be 
irresistible  too. 

We  must  grasp  our  real  weapons  ;  we 
must  occupy  our  proper  strategic  positions. 
God  is  with  us,  Christ  is  our  captain,  within 
us  works  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  brought 
cosmos  out  of  chaos  and  light  out  of  dark- 
ness. No  one  who  has  once  looked  into  the 
law  of  liberty,  and  understood  the  forces 
which  came  in  Jesus  Christ  to  redeem  and 
regenerate  mankind,  can  have  any  doubt 
that  the  gospel  is  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation.  And  with  this  certainty  our  way 
becomes  plain,  and  all  doubt  and  misgiving 
vanish.  It  is  the  gospel  which  shatters  the 
Roman  system  as  it  shattered  the  heathenism 
of  which  the  Roman  Church  is  so  close  an 
imitation.  The  tradition  perishes  before  an 
open  Bible.  The  Virgin  and  the  saints 
recede  before  the  living  Christ.  Priests  and 
Popes  are  superseded  by  the  Church,  which 
is  itself  a  kingdom  of  priests. 

198 


The  Duty  of  Protestants 

Finally,  let  us  not  be  dismayed  because 
Rome,  perishing  all  over  the  world,  finds  a 
temporary  shelter  and  an  apparent  success 
in  these  Protestant  countries,  where  her 
methods  and  principles  are  unknown.  If 
England  in  her  mighty  youth  was  able  to 
resist  and  to  repudiate  the  Pope,  we  may 
be  sure  that  in  her  maturity  she  will  jiot 
succumb.  If  the  cycles  of  the  past  should 
be  repeated,  if  another  Bloody  Mary  should 
seize  the  throne,  and  light  the  fires  of  Smith- 
field,  the  spirit  of  England  would  find  an- 
other Elizabeth,  another  Cromwell.  What 
we  have  been  we  yet  shall  be.  If  our 
fathers  rejected  Rome  on  account  of  its 
practical  corruption  and  oppression,  we  are 
not  likely  to  submit  to  it  when  we  under- 
stand how  those  corruptions  and  oppres- 
sions are  inherent  in  the  system,  when  we 
behold  with  open  and  purged  eyes  the  theo- 
retical errors  and  the  dogmatic  fictions  which 
lead  inevitably  to  these  practical  results. 


199 


Ube  Orcsbam  press, 

UNWIN  BROTHERS    LIMlTEIi 
WOKINli  AND  LONDON 


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A  Flame  of  Fire 
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The  Coming  of  the  King 
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A  complete  survey  of  the  present  position  and  possibilities- 
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1  Our  Lollard  Ancestors 

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2  The  Story  of  the  Anabaptists 

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3  Baptist  and  Congregational  Pioneers 

By  J.  H.  Shakespeare,  M.A. 

4  Nonconformity  in  Wales 

By  H.  Elvet  Lewis,  M.A. 

5  The  Rise  of  the  Quakers 

By  T.  Edmund  Harvey,  M.A.,  M.P. 

6  Commonweahh  England 

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7  From  the  Restoration  to  the  Revolution 

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8  Scotland's  Struggle  for  Religious  Liberty 

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10    Modern  Developments  in  Methodism 
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U    Nonconformity  in  the  I9th  Century 

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12    Foreign  Missions 

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3  The  Life  of  the  Christian 

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4  As  a  King  Ready  to  the  Battle 

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6  The  Sours  Wrestle  with  Doubt 

By  F.  B.  Meyer,  B.A. 

7  The  Whole  Armour  of  God 

By  George  S.  Barrett,  D.D. 

9    The  Devotional  Use  of  the  Holy  Scriptures: 
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10    The  Guiding  Hand  of  God 

By  J.  Rendel  Harris,  M.A.,  D.Litt. 

U    The  Open  Secret 

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12  From  Natural  to  Spiritual 

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13  A  Chain  of  Graces 

By  George  Hanson,  M.A.,  D.D. 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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